


return

by fishcola



Series: sommeil [3]
Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Depression, Developing Relationship, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Explicit Language, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Suicidal Ideation, Supernatural Elements, Violent Scenes, Violent Sex, chronic illness and livin with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-01-14 23:38:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18486790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishcola/pseuds/fishcola
Summary: I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return.— Frida Kahloonce you've felt the pain of losing something a few times, you're ready to try the pain of having it. pat's ready.note: again, won't make much sense w/out reading the 1 and 2





	1. the road back

**Author's Note:**

> Part 3 of 3-part story. This is supposed to be the fluffy part of H/C, but check the warnings, because mama likes it rough.
> 
> More **graphic violence** (including graphic sexual violence), **dubious consent** both romantic and sexual, and **mental illness** (including depression, at length) herein. 
> 
> ~~~ HEY YO THESE PEOPLE ARE GOOD ~~~  
> poppyseedheart is responsible for helping me build a resolution that--while fantastical--at least attempts to address the real world issues it touches. ty endlessly.
> 
> Johnny_Kielbasa is responsible for laughing at all my dick jokes. so blame him.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road—there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt.
> 
>  
> 
> **\- Fyodor Dostoyevsky**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: very explicit. see all sex and violence tags. not so much the other ones, for this chapter.

 

 

In the past months, Pat has become an expert at waking up.

He can force himself out of a doze with all speed, slamming into awareness with a trifecta of status reports— _what woke me up? how long have I been asleep? is Brian awake?_ These practical concerns come before sentient thought, even before the dregs of his dreams spiral away. He can push aside the hazy buzz of sleep-feelings, the vague sense of dreamy direction, the purpose and puzzle and plans that his unconscious mind has concocted out of whole cloth.

Pat wakes up sudden, and ignores the seething sensation of _conviction_ —that urgent pang of waking up with something _important_ to do—to grasp reflexively at his vitals.

He’s been asleep—maybe forty-five minutes—not long.  

Brian’s awake—and he’s himself.

The kid’s crying—that’s probably what woke Pat up—normal.

He lets the tension bleed out of his shoulders and moves on to lesser concerns. The pain is bad in his face. Nose might be broken—there’s blood. Ah, that’s probably why the kid is crying. If it hurts this bad it probably looks worse. Pat needs to get up. He needs to shake off this dreamy feeling of intense misplaced _motivation_ , let it dissolve in the light of day, and get to work.

Pat lifts himself up and turns to the kid. He’s in the fetal position, hitching sobs, pathetic and in pain. “Shhh. You’re all right. Let me get the key,” Pat murmurs, and shoves his stumbling body forward to obey. He doesn’t even have to stand, just shuffle on his knees and grope next to the bed and find the little metal ring. It jingles as he unlocks it, and the kid moans with pain to be touched, and moans in anguish to see Pat’s face.

“Your wrists are bruised to shit. We can’t do that again,” Pat says softly.

Brian sobs and sits up and tries feebly to scratch at his head. It’s hard to hold his arms without eliciting a scream of pain. Eventually Pat manages to pin the kid’s hands by the fingers.

“ _Please_ calm down,” Pat begs. “Just breathe, okay.”

Brian gulps in wide, wet gasps of air until his body lets him settle down a bit. “Sorry,” he gets out finally. “I just. I hate to see him hurt you. I’d do anything to stop him.”

“No shit, kid,” Pat risks letting the little trembling hand go, so he can run his fingers through his hair. “What the hell do you think I’m trying to do.”

That tickles something in his brain. It’s funny. Your nightmares stick with you sometimes, even though they’re just odd flights of fancy. Sometimes you wake up thinking you’ve figured out—

Pat _seizes_ Brian’s hunched shoulders hard—

the kid yelps and nearly jumps out of his skin—

and Pat’s almost _shaking_ him with feverish remembering _._

“ _Jesus_ , Pat,” Brian mewls faintly, scared and sad and amused all in one. “Are you trying to scare the shit out of me?”

“Remind me to ask you something,” Pat says roughly. “Later. It’s _important_.”

“Okay,” Brian gives a little nod. “Are you—are we—okay?”  

They are, and aren’t. Pat hasn’t had any fucking time to clean up — they’re still on the floor together, Brian shaking, Pat bleeding, both exhausted — trying to figure out what happened — and what’s going to happen next — and what they are now — and who was wrong about last night — and who the fuck is going to work today, because they’re out of sick days and capitalism is a bitch and Fluffy _really_ does not like chef boyardee.

They don’t really have any answers. But now Pat knows what he’s going to do.

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Some ice and a styptic pencil helps Pat’s nose; there’s not much to be done for Brian’s wrists. They’re not cut up this time—Pat’s bandages did their job—but they’re bruised all to hell and he moves them delicate and stiff. It’s a crime, that anything would slow those clever fingers.

“There’s no way you’re gonna sit at your desk like this and pretend to type,” Pat grimaces. “You’re working from home. I’ll make your excuses.”

“All right,” Brian assents, folding himself into a chair and looking small and frail but somewhat relieved. Pat presses a mug of hot chocolate into his hands and strokes his hair affectionately.

“Are you okay alone here, today? I look like shit, but I can get in the office for a few hours. Pick up some food for later.”

“I’ll be okay,” the kid nods. “I’ll stay online.”

“Great. Let me shower real quick and—”

“You wanted to ask me something,” Brian cuts in, catches Pat’s hand, before he can hurry away. “You said it was important.”

Pat huffs out a breath and looks down. “Yeah. Um.” He musters all his dubious charms. “Can I have your blessing to try something crazy tonight?”

Brian freezes. “No. You can’t—I’ll hurt you—”

“Fine.” Pat wants to be gentle, but he thinks he just sounds kind of tired. “You’ll hurt me. But I want to do it anyway. We tried your way.” He gestures vaguely at their mutually broken bodies.

The hand tightens on his. “Please, _please_ don’t try anything risky. What if it goes wrong?”

Pat surprises both of them with a laugh. “If it goes wrong it’s gonna be a disaster.”

He detaches his hand gently from Brian’s grip, and his eyes from Brian’s tortured gaze.

“Just think about it, all right? I’m gonna shower.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The hot water opens some cuts again, but that’s easily fixed. Pat feels better, when he’s dressed and damp and pressing his things into his messenger bag with purpose.

Brian watches him get ready. “You’re gonna let me hurt you. Again.”

“It’s not you, kid.”

“But it _is_ ,” Brian’s voice is thready. He’s so worn out. “I know you…you know him better…because you remember. I know we don’t think the same. Or act the same. Or have the same memories. Or whatever. But you don’t…you don’t _feel_ him, like I do.”

“What do you feel, Bri,” Pat asks, because he doesn’t know what that means, and also he’d like the kid to keep talking while he shoves this banana in his mouth and tries to get down a mug of coffee.

“I can feel him under my skin,” Brian shudders. “And it’s not…we have the same emotions, Pat. The same body. He’s _me_. He’s sad, right now…and he’s afraid you’ll leave…and he doesn’t know what to do. I just—am so afraid—”

“Don’t be afraid. I got this.

“What should I do?” Brian sighs plaintively, and grips his mug tight. “You’re not making sense.”

“You should feed Charlie for me,” Pat instructs. “Text your sister. Eat something. Don’t run away. Trust me. _Please_ let me try my crazy thing.” He pauses. “Two crazy things, actually, come to think of it.

The look of consternation, while grave, is at least a touch humorous. “Oh no. They’re multiplying.”

“Just two. They’ll work. Scout’s honor.”

Brian snorts at that, because he knows Pat is a liar. “Can I at least, um, get a hint?”

“Sure.” Pat kisses Brian hard, and leaves quick, before he can see if it makes him cry again.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Thomas laughs like a maniac when Pat asks for help. Of course, it’s impossible to explain everything. Pat traces out just enough to get some trusted advice. And mockery.

“Patrick Gill you fucking asshole you told me you were straight,” Thomas moans. “And now you’re coming out _and_ you’re not a top? Break my heart into little tiny fuckin’ pieces, why don’t you.”  

“Look, some of us are getting a jump-start on mid-life crisis territory, Thomas, so stop fucking laughing and tell me how I’m supposed to do this. I googled it but there’s like way too much fucking advice and it’s freaking me out.”

“Just go slow, dude, there’s no rush.”  

Pat closes his eyes and touches his head to the concrete wall in the alley—the only place he can find to have this conversation. “Let’s just imagine for a second that that’s not an option. What can I do?”

“Pat,” Thomas’s tone teases. “Doesn’t sound like this relationship is starting off healthy. Just tell them you’re new, all right? They’ll probably love it.”  

“Look, Thomas.” Pat sighs, and he’s supposed to make a joke, but it’s just too fucking real, right now, and he knows his voice sounds strained and devoid of humor. “I can’t explain now. At all. At all. But it’s really, really important that I figure this out, and like, tonight, or I’m gonna get hurt and I’m gonna hurt someone else, okay?”

A pause. “Dude, that’s fucking ominous. Do you like, owe someone money?”  

“Not exactly,” Pat says.  

Another pause. “What the fuck, Pat. Are you okay? Do you need help?”

“I’ll tell you one day, I swear. I really will. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not that. Please, just help me. I have about five minutes to finish this conversation before I really need to be somewhere. Please.”

Thomas is quiet for a minute, and then sighs. “Okay, way to one-eighty this conversation into serious-town, Gill. I dunno who’s fucking you tonight, but I can try and explain the basics. And you’re texting me after, you hear? Because if not, I’m gonna fuckin’ worry. Okay? ”  

“Will do,” Pat says, and takes notes.  

  
  


 

 

 

It feels weird, working the thing into his ass in the bathroom at work, but Pat reckons it’s his best option. It was fucking humiliating, dropping into the sex shop on his lunch break, and worse still trying to figure out which of the infinite variety of colors and materials best fit his particular needs. Thomas’s recommendation helped a bit, and he ended up with something heavy and curved in easily-sanitized metal, rather than a hot-pink plastic abomination.  

Lube makes it easier, but it still hurts, and it takes a long time to get in. He’s barely been at his desk today, and he hopes Tara doesn’t give him shit about it, because he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to avoid snapping at her. His self-control is pretty shot right now, and it’s not even because the bulb is finally deep enough to get at his prostate and his knees weaken in surprising pleasure.

Fuck. The burning pain is mostly gone, and the feeling of fullness isn’t so terrible—it’s weird, but it’s not _terrible_ . It’s sick, but he’s kind of — turned on, by it all. It’s not the feeling exactly, although parts of that are roughly adjacent to good. It’s the fact that what he’s doing is crazy, and secret, and filthy. It’s that Thomas is worried about him, and maybe he _should_ be. That this morning he kissed Brian, and this evening Brian is going to fuck him, most likely, and he’d better be goddamn ready.

He has to pace back and forth in the disabled stall a few times, mastering the hitch of pain in his stride. He also jerks off, for good measure. Maybe that’ll get him through the last hour of work.

“Why are you doing this, Patrick,” he whispers to himself, pressing his hands up against the tile.

But he’s lying to himself, really. He already knows the answers. He’s tried everything else. He can’t stand to see the kid get hurt. It’s easier for him to check into a hospital than Brian. This matches the lore. He’s never been a good person. He’s not afraid to fuck up from time to time. And there’s at least a snowball’s chance in hell that the kid’ll forgive him.

And y’know, he fucking _wants to._

Shit. It’s wrong, it’s all wrong, but Fluffy would understand.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Brian doesn’t text him all day, or message him on Slack. But Pat sees twice—

_Brian is typing something_

— and holds his breath, and hopes.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Brian jumps about a foot in the air when Pat comes in. He looks like shit, and he’s shaking with energy and probably anxiety, and he seems torn between wanting to hug Pat and to punch him—

which actually is an oddly familiar look to see on the kid’s face.

“Jesus Christ I’m glad you’re still here,” Pat breathes happily.

“What the _fuck_ , Pat,” Brian growls. “You kiss me and then just _leave_?”

Pat can’t stop fucking smiling. “Feels pretty shitty, doesn’t it?”

Brian chokes and looks away. Pat catches his shoulder, touches it affectionately. Not an apology, exactly. He just likes touching the kid. He’s so fucking grateful, that he got the chance.

“Sorry. Yeah, dick move. I won’t do it again.”

“I— I— ” Brian is struggling with something. Pat ignores him.

“I bet you didn’t eat anything today, did you?”

“No,” Brian admits.

“Will you cook something for me? I got some stuff at the store.”

Brian stares at him for a long time, and then runs a hand through his hair in the exact same way Pat does when he’s totally, completely, helplessly out of his depth, and just says, “Sure.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The evening is brutally normal, though Pat knows he’s buzzing with strange energy, and Brian seems at turns terrified of it and drawn in. Pat has a lot of empathy for that feeling. The kid doesn’t collapse into full-on crying, at least, and they go to bed without much incident, or discussion, or anything else but a sense of burning anticipation.

It takes a couple minutes to get ready. Pat strips down to his boxers, works out the plug and washes it and puts it away. Adds some extra lube, just to be safe.

“This is fucked up,” he says to himself in the bathroom mirror, but his face refuses to look at all contrite. “You’re fucking crazy, Patrick. When Brian leaves again, you’re gonna deserve it.”

Still, he comes back into the bedroom, sits cross-legged on the floor, and waits.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


When Brian-not-Brian wakes up, he’s groggy at first. Looks around like a lost puppy. It’s gotten to tugging at Pat’s heartstrings, the little confused look. It must be weird, to only be allowed out so rarely, and to be tied down when you are. To not understand what is happening to you the rest of the time. To get memory snatches of people and places you’ll never get to see.

“Hey, bud,” Pat addresses him quietly. “Good evening.”

The eyes are on him, blood-red, and a little nervous, but they’re not like yesterday. Not quite so afraid. He barely curls his lip to show a sparkling tooth.

“You and I have to talk about what’s going on between us.”

The beast that is also Brian approaches. He’s not aggressive, but he certainly moves slow, and with close attention. Pat makes sure he’s on the floor, and that his legs are barely within reach, but he knows—

with Brian, with _this_ Brian, “barely within reach” means “arbitrarily close”—

and the sharp, clever hands find, in the space of seconds, his toe, his foot, his leg, he’s dragging, crushed against the floor, with Brian’s bruising grip on his hips. The hot dark breath ruffles Pat’s hair as he looks up into the familiar face. Well. Might as well keep talking.

“You’re very forward.” The creature nuzzles him, and also squeezes his hips possessively, hard enough to make Pat wince. “That’s a turn-off for some people.”

The _licking_ at his hair is very distracting, albeit somewhat flattering. Affectionate. Gives him the confidence to relax a little.

“Yeah, not for me, as you’ve guessed. So I think what I wanna say is. I need you to chill out a little bit, with the fucking finger strength, but otherwise I’m game. If you wanna pick up where we left off.”

There’s no reaction, but continued affectionate licking, and the clawed hands dragging up and down his torso. They’re not cutting. They’re feather-light, and when they flick across Pat’s nipples he gasps a bit.

The sound is apparently somewhat of interest to Brian. He bites down on Pat’s neck, which makes Pat shudder. It’s not—he _thinks_ it’s not hard enough to do real damage—but it’s hard to tell, what with the sucking and licking that follows.

The nose tips Patrick’s chin up, letting the tongue continue its work on the front of his trembling neck. He feels it pulse over his jugular. God, they’re so sharp. Literally a centimeter, that’s all it would take. He shivers.

“I know you’re into me,” Pat says, as soon as Brian has moved down to his collarbone, and he’s feeling less imminently in danger of sneezing himself to death. “Because I’m not dead.”

His chest is getting covered with hickeys too, although mostly sans puncture wounds, it seems. He nearly cries when Brian’s mouth covers his nipple and sucks hard. It hurts, and it feels good, at the same time.

“ _Please_ ,” he hears himself say. Though he didn’t consciously decide to, he finds he’s stroking his dick.

Brian’s face looks up at him, and again he has that desiring look, barbaric and open, that makes Pat’s heart flutter with fear and interest. The claws are feeling around his body quite openly now, not as violently as before, but still menacing in their sharp faint way.

Fluffy makes an agitated sound, when his claws catch on Pat’s boxers. One clawed hand wrenches his thighs open—it hurts, the grip, fucking _hell_ —while the other shreds them off with a growl.  

Some aggressive maneuvering gets Pat over onto all fours—” _Fuck_ , kid, I’m going, I’m going,” he complains—as Brian growls and Pat’s bones grind together. He braces his elbows on the ground. He’d _hoped_ this might happen in bed, but beggars can’t be choosers. Gotta invest in that rug someday.

The first thrust buries him _deep_ —

maybe not to the hilt, but it’s close—

and Pat can’t help but yelp. _Fuck_ , it hurts.

It hurts when Brian moves, too, at least at first, burns and stretches and makes Pat bite down on his lip to stop from getting a noise complaint from the community watch or whatever.

Pat tries to press his forehead into his hands and breathe and relax and move away a little and find one of the angles that Thomas suggested might be easiest. Brian’s not having it though—

Fluffy is clawing for chest and arms and shoulders—

trying to reach some part of Pat that he can grab, to pull him back—

“ _Please_ not like that,” Pat sobs, when the thing gets him by the nape. “Oh _Jesus_ fuck, that hurts.”

the hand in his hair is _wrenching_ up his torso, and it rips tears from his eyes—

Pat’s hands, involuntary, fly up behind his head to grab Brian’s fingers, trying in vain to detach that fearsome grip before he loses a fist-shaped chunk of hair. “ _Please_ —”

The begging or the movement is perhaps understood, or else Fluffy understands that pulling Pat’s head isn’t the most efficient way to get his torso where it is desired. The claws relinquish his hair and instead he seizes Pat’s arms by the wrists—

fucking _hell_ —

the grip on his forearms is steely, as they’re wrenched behind him—

“I’m not that _flexible_ , kid,” Pat moans, as his shoulders protest—

at least Brian’s leaning back so he doesn’t fuck Pat into the floor—

the bruising grip on his arms suspends his shaking shoulders at whatever angle Fluffy wants, precisely—

it’s fine, it’s _fine_ , this should be fine, at least it’s better than the hair—

as long as Brian doesn’t drop him face-first—

but that doesn’t seem likely as he settles in. The pace picks up in earnest now that Pat is helpless. The thrusting is fairly _vicious_. Pat feels pain and pressure—the grating bones don’t even register in the top three list of sensations—he’s preoccupied with the fullness, the burning, the violent jerks that snap his head and shake yelps out of his mouth.

He doesn’t know how much endurance is expected of him. He’d hoped that, like last time, Brian would make it quick. But today he seems to be taking his time.

Pat screams, at some particularly violent movement, and it’s a real shock when Brian pauses.

“ _Thank you_ ,” he breathes in wretched gratefulness, at the pause—

and then again, “oh _thank you Christ,”_ when Brian pulls out and lets go of one of his arms.

He uses his free hand—thank heaven for small mercies—to wipe his snot away. Lets the trembling fingers hide his face. Steadies himself.

A moment, or two, pass, still. Brian’s heavy panting. His own hitching breaths.

The calm stretches on and Pat runs his shaking hand through his hair. He can actually feel his body now. The pain is still there, unaltered, like the fingertips on his forearm, but it’s no longer so large and terrible that nothing else can sneak into his mind. The overwhelming flood of senses recedes. Pat can at least remember that he _has_ a dick, and although it doesn’t have an erection anymore he at least remembers what one could be like.

He turns, finally, to look at Fluffy, who is staring at him with that intense red gaze.

“What’s on your mind, big guy,” Pat manages. “D-did I—did I _scare_ you?”

Brian tugs the arm he’s holding, and stands, so Pat has to stumble up. It feels so _wrong_ . He’s almost _never_ on his feet around Brian-the-creature, out of that feral sense of self preservation. Standing eye-to-eye with him seems crazy, and it’s even crazier that Pat is a little taller, that he has to look down to see the deadly fangs and the flexing arms that could definitely crush his windpipe in two seconds flat.

He doesn’t know what Fluffy is thinking, or _if_ Fluffy is thinking, but he looks kind of keyed up, so Pat does what he always does, and just talks in soft tones about anything he can fucking think of.

“Sorry if I scared you. I didn’t mean to yell. It just hurt, kid. That’s all. You’ve gotta take it easy on me. I’m an old man. I can’t handle these acrobatics. Are you done for tonight? Did I ruin the mood? Can we just skip to the part where—”

The hand lets go its bruising grip, and Pat stops short—

because he didn’t really imagine that he’d be _let go_ for the duration of the evening—

but both his arms are his own responsibility now, and he doesn’t really have a plan to deal with that?

He’s never once been within Fluffy’s control and then been _relinquished_ and it thrills his back with goosebumps because he doesn’t know what it means. There’s a beat of standing—swaying—while Pat figures out what to do. He’s half-afraid to move, to ruin whatever tenuous moment of trust this is in the eye of the hurricane.

Pat prays that if it’s a test then the right way to pass is to take a half-stumbling step forward and bury his fingertips in Brian’s hair, petting and scratching in the way that the kid likes.

Brian _purrs_ and draws him in to kiss. Of course, it’s really Brian kissing and Pat _being_ kissed—tilting his head so that his nose doesn’t pulse with pain while his mouth strives to be pliant—but it’s more equitable, this embrace. Brian’s firm arm around his back is a fucking _relief_ , because Pat can lean his weight on it and stop fighting to stay upright. Instead he can focus on how the hand feels at the nape of his neck and how the tongue feels licking into his mouth. Good, in both cases. Dangerous—but good.

Pat lets his own hands wander over Brian’s back. He’s touched the kid _so many_ times by now. The sweat-soaked skin feels much the same, no matter which he’s holding.

The claws are skirting around his hips, and Pat gets an inkling of where this is going just before it does.

“Hey, hey—” he barely gets out a squeak when he’s being _lifted_ like a doll—

Brian’s got him up and pressed against the wall in a few steps—

a hand under his armpit, the other pulling his thigh up and out of the way—

the kissing continues, though, and Pat tries to keep his wits about him. He’s rather _not_ have Brian’s arms under his knees, so instead of dangling and waiting to be pinned like a butterfly he wraps his leg around the kid’s waist.

Fluffy gives a grunt of approval and releases the thigh, so Pat can hitch his other ankle up and lock it with the first and get an angle going that is _marginally_ less punishing.

It’s better, this position—it’s good to see the feral grin of lusty joy—to feel Brian’s mouth suck into his neck—and Brian’s cock can’t plunge _quite_ so deep into his aching ass—though the kid’s still fucking with such recklessness that Pat’s head and shoulders bang _hard_ into the wall and send picture frames askew.

Pat pants and moans, because it fucking _hurts_ , and feels _good_ , and he can see _stars_. He’s gonna be stumbling like a drunken sailor tomorrow, if he manages to get out of this without a concussion that knocks him flat, but there’s literally nothing he can do about it now. He tries to focus on anything that feels good and leave the rest for later.

Brian’s teeth are on his mouth again, taking what he wants, whatever he wants, and Pat closes his eyes. It’s ridiculous, that he signed up for this. But y’know. You only go around once.

When Brian comes, he _roars_ with delight. Pat’s crying too hard to get his feet under him, but—god bless—he’s not dropped on the ground. He’s carried, instead, quite tenderly, over to the bed and placed down, allowed to curl into the fetal position and try not to sob too hard and freak out Fluffy.

The claws rubbing at his scalp are actually kind of nice, all things considered. He doesn’t think he can manage to jerk off; he’s hurting too much, everywhere, but maybe next time he’ll see if they can come to a more equitable arrangement.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments give me great joy <3


	2. rescue from without

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you're drowning you don't think, 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would notice I'm drowning and come and rescue me.' You just scream.
> 
>  
> 
> **— John Lennon**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: one or two rather jarring (but non-graphic) mentions of suicide, and a little bit of everything else.

 

Pat makes a tactical error, the next morning, because he’s so busy cleaning things up and trying not to fucking pass out at the same time. He doesn’t have forever until Brian wakes up. He needs to get rid of all the mess, and get himself in some clothes, and get Brian in some clothes, and erase what evidence he can of the shenanigans the night before, so that Brian doesn’t get some crazy idea in his head. Just in case, he leaves Brian chained up while he cleans, because forcing his body to go quickly is just not working great today, and if Brian wakes up and remembers and panics, at least he’s safely out of the reach of sharp shit.    


The knock on his door surprises him, because it’s really fucking early for a Saturday, and no one’s ever at his door. He assumes it’s Mormons and ignores it. He’s got clothes on, but he’s not looking his fucking best, okay, and he’s already heard the good news.    


The knock is repeated, though. Twice, and louder each time. Mormons aren’t usually so rude, and they certainly don’t yell—

in Thomas’s voice— 

_ Patrick Gill! if you’re in there open this fucking door or I’m calling the police! _   


It’s hard, to get to the handle quickly, but he does, and yanks Thomas inside while hissing “ _ Shut the fuck up _ ” in a dropped whisper, because if Brian could not wake up for this conversation that would be  _ aces _ .    


“Pat you said you’d fuckin’  _ call _ ,” Thomas says, in a voice that is angry and not at all quiet enough. 

“Jesus  _ Christ,  _ stop yelling—” 

“What the—” they struggle, briefly,  “—you look like  _ shit— _ ” and eventually Thomas gets his arm loose. 

“If you wake up Brian I’m going to kill you,” Pat rasps. “He’s sick as a dog and sleeping for the first time in forty-eight hours, so for the love of god shut  _ up _ .”    


Thomas glares at him but lowers his voice. “Fine. But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t  _ text  _ me. I’ve called you like six times—”   


His eyes catch Pat’s neck—

he says  _ holy shit _ and reaches out— 

Pat jerks back, but because his body is betraying him today, this rips at something that is tender— 

he stumbles and swears and ends up on one knee, breathing hard.    


“Who the  _ fuck  _ was necking with you, Patrick.” Thomas’s tone careens from harsh to soft, and he’s looking at Pat like he’s either going to cry or throw a fucking fit. “And don’t tell me it was that little twink. There’s no way he bites like  _ that _ .”    


“None of your business,” he says, stalling for time, brushing his hair out of his eyes shakily and gathering his strength and trying to think quick. To formulate a lie that Thomas will understand, will accept, will make him  _ leave _ . 

Thomas reaches out a hand and Pat accepts it gratefully—

it’s not a hand up, though, because fucking  _ hell _ , he must have seen something— 

instead he wrenches back Pat’s sleeve to stare at darkening bruises on the skinny wrist. They aren’t as bad as they’ll be tomorrow. Nothing’s broken, he’s pretty sure. But it looks bad, red and purple rings of fingers and pricks of fresh blood. In combination with the scars from last month it must be a real hell of a sight.   


“Pat,” Thomas says in a whisper, and he sounds like the wind’s been knocked out of him. “Why didn’t you tell me.”

“You don’t  _ understand _ ,” Pat hisses and tries to pull away. “Let it  _ be _ .”

“Christ. You need to go to the cops. Now. I’ll take you. Come on.”    


“No,” Pat says, grabbing Thomas’s arm to yank himself back up. “Listen. I’m fine. I just—it was a little—” He sways. “More than I expected, okay. Nothing I can’t handle. You have to  _ go _ .”    


“Who is back there,” Thomas is holding Pat’s arms, steadying him, but also not letting go.    


“ _ Brian _ ,” Pat repeats. “Who’s so fucking tired, Thomas. I need to be here for him. And you need to leave.”    


Thomas’s look is dark. “Brian didn’t do this to you. So what are you hiding?” 

“Get the fuck  _ out _ ,” Pat growls, and tries to shove him off, but finds himself too weak for the task. 

It’s frustrating, how Thomas’s anger shifts into something like pity. “Patrick,  _ please  _ talk to me. Or come with me. Or something. I can’t leave you here like this. You’re fucking bleeding. Are you—did they—”   


“P-patrick?” Brian’s voice calls out, tentative, terrified, from somewhere behind.    


“I told you you’d wake him,” Pat groans. He’s leaning almost all his weight on Thomas, now— 

and he knows he needs to get back up, to go tell Brian it’s all right, to unlatch him and hug him and tell him he’s fine

—but he can’t seem to make his body obey.    


“Well, he’s fuckin’ awake now,” Thomas says sharply. “Does he know about this?”

Pat opens his mouth to explain, but his tongue feels leaden, and the world is shifting, murky.    


“I’m going back there,” Thomas decides, and lets go, to take the few short steps to the bedroom door. "If I see the kid’s dick, I’ll deal.”   


Patrick tries to protest, but things go green, and he realizes just a microsecond before that this is what fainting must feel like.    


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Pat wakes up on the floor in his bedroom—which is not in and of itself unusual—but having Thomas bending over him is. 

“How long was I out?” Pat asks immediately, to gauge the kind of damage he’s done. 

“About a minute,” Brian says quietly, from the other side of the room. “Long enough.” 

Thomas is taking his pulse, he realizes, when his body catches up to the sensations and realizes what the fingers pressing into his throat mean. He can feel his heartbeat throb steady against the fingertips. 

“Patrick, I need you to tell me why Brian is chained to your fire escape. And why he says you’re the one that knows the code to let him loose. And why he won’t let me call anyone without asking you first. And why you’re stumbling like a gang of bikers ran train on you last night. And why none of this makes any fucking  _ sense _ .”

There’s silence, while Pat collects himself. He takes deep breaths. Well, fuck. 

“He needs an ambulance, Thomas,” Brian’s voice is small, but calm. “He’s probably hurt pretty bad. You can call the cops. Just tell him the code, first, please, Pat, so he can let me go.” 

“No.” 

Thomas’s gaze turns back to Pat, and his stare is wild. “ _ Why _ ?” 

“If you let him loose, he’ll throw himself off the balcony,” Pat sighs. 

Brian flinches. 

Thomas’s eyes trace to Brian, then back. “Okay. That tracks. Maybe not the best problem-solving, but very you. Now, why no cops?” 

“ ‘Cause I’m kinda fond of not being in an asylum,” Pat groans. “And literally no one will believe this shit. And they’ll probably let Brian go eventually, and  _ then  _ he’ll throw himself off the balcony.” 

Thomas thinks about that for a second, then sits down. 

“How bad are you hurt, exactly.” 

“Not sure, to be honest,” Pat says. “Don’t think it’s too bad, though. Parts of it were even fun.” 

Brian, who’s tearing at his ankle with his fingers pointlessly, hitches a sob. 

Thomas is completely at sea, but he’s a fucking good friend, so he just throws his hands up.

“Okay. Fine. Fuck it. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m making some goddamn coffee, because it’s too goddamn early, and you’re going to drink it and lie down and eat something and let me check you over, and then you’re both going to tell me what the hell is going on.” He pauses, glances at Brian. “And then I’m unlocking you. Maybe.”

“Thanks, Thomas,” Pat sighs. “I appreciate it.”    
  
  
  
  
  


 

  
  
  
Brian doesn’t say anything, the whole time Thomas is out of the room, which isn’t all that long, really. Just cries, and tries to bang his head against the wall. Pat manages to get over to him, and hold him, and stroke his hair, and tell him it’s going to be alright. Brian is inconsolable, though, but so weak that he can’t do much but lie in Pat’s arms like a stone. 

Thomas comes back in balancing three mugs of coffee, and doesn’t even seem phased by the change of position. He just puts one on the floor next to Brian, and another on the side table, and says, “Up. Let’s see the damage.” 

Pat doesn’t want to let Brian go, though.    


“Let him,” says Brian, listlessly pushing him away. “I need to see too.”   


“He’ll freak out, Thomas,” Pat says, pushing Brian’s hands away. “I don’t want him to get upset.”

Before Thomas can say anything, Brian growls, “Let me see what I’ve fucking  _ done _ , Pat.” 

Thomas taps his mug, but makes no other reaction. “C’mon. He’s already freaked. What’s a little more.”    


Pat sighs and pushes himself to his feet. He’s steadier, now; just a bit of swaying. Pulls his shirt off without too much of a hitch. Brian, of course, immediately starts crying.   


“Pretty bad,” Thomas says flatly, turning him around. “Scratches probably hurt, look pretty clean though. Your wrists are fucked up, but since you’re moving them I’m betting they’re not broken. It’s the bites that are freaking me out. Those could get infected. You need an antibiotic for that.”    


“I’ll go get one later,” Pat acquiesces. “We good?”   


“Absolutely not. Those pants are coming off,” Thomas gives a savage smile. “We’re all good friends here, Patrick. Whip it out.”   


Pat sighs, but unbuckles. “Fine. I’m lodging a complaint about your bedside manner, though.”    


“Noted. Cmon cmon, let’s see little Patrick.”    


He shoves off his jeans and boxers in one fell swoop. His bottom half is much less bad, he thinks, in terms of scratches and bruises, but the marks tell more of a story than he’d like. The dark handprints on his hips, his thigh. The bruises on his knees. Thomas touches them, gently.   


“You got fucked a coupla times, huh.”   


“Just twice,” Pat explains, which makes Brian sob harder.    


“Eesh. No wonder you wanted some tips. Looks like a real manhandling. How’s your ass?”   


“It bled a little,” Pat admits. “But it stopped. It hurts now. But I can walk. I think I’m in the clear.”    


“I’m gonna spare you the indignity of checking on that,” Thomas squints at him. “I think you’ll live. If you want I can go to urgentcare for you. I can probably lie you up an antibiotic, if I need to.”   


“That'd be great,” Pat sighs in relief as he buckles back up. “I can’t afford to deal with questions.”    


“No  _ shit _ ,” Thomas says, staring back over his shoulder at Brian. “So, what’s up with him, then?”    


“He’s a fucking werewolf,” Pat sighs. “And I’m in love with him.”    


At least Brian is so shocked he stops crying   
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Of all the fuckin’ people in the world to trust with this,” Thomas says, sitting on a chair and staring into Brian’s face like a CIA interrogator, “Your mom, your doctor, a priest—why would you pick  _ Patrick _ ?”

Brian sighs. “I didn’t. He figured it out. Kinda.”

The kid looks better, after coffee and some bacon. He’s not sniffling anymore. He still seems exhausted, but his will to live seems to have returned a bit. It might be watching Pat pad around in his underwear, kinda normal-like, eating cold pizza and checking his texts. 

“I followed him,” Pat says, between bites. “And saw him. And then, yknow. Whatyougonnado?”

“Definitely not  _ this _ ,” Thomas gestures vaguely at Brian, the chain, and Patrick. “This? Is crazy.”

“Yeah,” Pat shrugs. “I dunno, man. I know it’s hard to believe. You should see it.”

“He should s— _ absolutely _ not—are you f—” Brian gasps, but Thomas cuts him off.

“Cool it, Lupin.” Thomas stands up, pulling his elbows off his knees. He fixes Pat with a glare. “I’m not saying the  _ kid’s  _ crazy, Patrick, or even that the  _ concept  _ is crazy, I’m saying that  _ you’re  _ crazy.” 

Pat shrugs.

“You find out your friend’s a werewolf and so you chain him up in your bedroom and try to fuck him?” Pat winces. “Maybe I should call the cops on  _ you _ .”

“ _ No! _ ” Brian says desperately, because he doesn’t know Thomas very well—and maybe he’s a little too exhausted to know when something’s a joke—and maybe there’s an edge to Thomas’s tone that makes it clear this really  _ isn’t.  _

“Stop it, kid,” Pat waves in exasperation. “And stop biting your nails. I told you, they’re gonna bleed.”

“Sorry,” Brian says reflexively, sitting on them. 

Thomas has his arms crossed, and he’s still staring at Pat. Awaiting his confession. But Brian is the one who tries to explain. “Thomas—you don’t understand—he didn’t try to fuck me. I’m too _strong_. When I change. He’s always—he thinks he can be close to me—to touch me—to calm me down—but I— ” The kid’s voice breaks, and it’s fucking heart-wrenching to watch him push through the tears. “I’m unpredictable. I hurt him. Sometimes it’s okay, but—he couldn’t have known I would—”

Brian trails off into soft crying. 

Thomas cocks an eyebrow at Pat.

Pat sighs, and runs a hand through his hair. 

“Well?” 

“That was definitely true as of last month.”

“Ah.”

Brian’s crying terminates in a sharp squeak that might be some approximation of the word  _ What? _

Well, here we go. “Okay. Bri. Don’t freak out. But you know how you pinned me down and cut up my arm? And then we made up?”

The kid is staring at him as if he just turned into a pile of spiders. “ _ Patrick _ .”

“Okay so yeah. It might have taken a little more negotiation than I said. But it was fine.”

Brian’s hyperventilating, now, and screwing his eyes closed, and those little hands are sneaking toward his head. Pat considers if he’ll be welcome holding them back again.

“ _ Patrick, _ ” he repeats, in a whisper. “How… _ what kind  _ of negotiation.”

“I’m a pretty fast talker,” Pat says, lightly. “We started at ‘fuck me dry into the parquet floor’ and ended up with ‘blowjob and a nice cuddle.’ So I count that as a win, personally.”

Brian’s head is in his hands. “So I  _ raped  _ you.  _ Twice _ .” 

Both Thomas and Pat start to make a sound, but Brian cuts them off, wailing. 

“Let me  _ go _ , Pat. Please. God. Just let me go. I can’t—just let me  _ go _ .”

Thomas clucks and sits back down, close to Brian, waves a hand in front of him. “I think maybe you need to take a chill pill, Peter Pan, before we get into any unlocking anybody. Let’s just get this thing straight.” 

Not much response, but less wailing, so that’s something. 

Thomas turns to Patrick, again. “So last month I get. You think you’re chill with your wolf buddy, he tries to alpha-dog you right into the ground, you get away clean and clear. Now tell me  _ why  _ you were looking for a second round?”

“It calms him down.” Thomas’s eyebrow twitches. “It  _ does _ . He’s fucking crazy otherwise. He’ll hurt himself.” 

“Bullshit. I  _ know  _ you, Patrick. Try again.” 

Pat closes his eyes, straightens his back, and tells the truth. “I don’t want him to hurt himself. And he's...cute. And I think I could learn to like it?”

“Hoo boy.” Thomas rubs his forehead. “You’ve got it  _ bad _ . Okay. I think I’m up to speed, more or less. Now let’s talk next steps.” 

He reaches out a hand to touch Brian’s shoulder. The kid jumps a mile, but Thomas leaves it there. “Hey. What we do next is up to you, kiddo.” 

“What are my options,” Brian says tentatively, raising his tousled head to look at Thomas with earnest desperation. 

“No flight attempts,” Thomas scolds gently. “But barring that, you decide. Do you forgive Patrick?”

“...forgive him?” Brian seems confused, as if he hadn’t been thinking about that, at all. Interesting. 

Thomas snorts. “Brian. He tried to get his dick wet with your wolfy friend without asking you.”

“No, no—he asked—I mean—kind of—?” The kid is working hard to sort this out. Pat understands. Whatever crazy shit Pat has in his head isn’t the most pressing concern Brian’s got right now. He’s exhausted, he hurts like hell, he’s got Thomas to worry about, and he’s thinking about all the things his body is capable of doing, without his permission. It’s a lot. 

“ _ Kind of  _ is not usually what we’re looking for, here.” Thomas says at Brian’s face, but to Patrick. 

Brian shakes his head. “He  _ did  _ ask. He told me he was gonna try something crazy. I didn’t ask too many questions. I could have left. But I…I stayed. I trust him.”

“Hmm. I don’t fuckin’ like it, Pat, but sounds like your prisoner here either forgives you or has Stockholm Syndrome.”

“Sounds like,” says Pat, in some surprise.

“Next question, little buddy. Are you  _ into  _ Patrick?”

“Clearly,” Brian says, hanging his head.

“Uh, I ain’t asking about like once-a-month, kid. Like  _ all the time.  _ Not how wolfy feels. How do  _ you  _ feel?”

Brian lifts his gaze and stares past Thomas, at Pat. “No, you don’t understand. I feel the  _ same _ . We  _ always  _ feel the same. I’ve had a crush on Pat since I  _ met  _ him. The only reason the wolf even…even  _ did  _ that was…because I  _ wanted  _ to."

“Well great news, then!” Thomas claps. “You’re officially in a Twilight spinoff. I grant thee both clemency from thy sins, say six hail marys, and we’re all good here. Fucking ey, Patrick, next time just  _ text. me.” _

“Will do,” says Pat, stunned.

“You owe me a pizza for the early-morning relationship counseling. Now I’m getting out of here before this shit gets kinky again. For the love of  _ god _ , though, when you’re done,  _ untie  _ the kid. If I hear he isn’t at work tomorrow I’m coming back and I’m bringing a taser. Capiche?”

 

 

## 


	3. the return threshold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I stay cool, and dig all jive,  
> That's the way I stay alive.  
> My motto,  
> as I live and learn,  
> is  
> Dig and be dug  
> In return.
> 
>  
> 
> **— Langston Hughes**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: numerous direct mentions of suicide, neither graphic nor intense, and not really w/strong emotion

 

“Let me go,” Brian repeats. 

Pat’s back curls. He can’t quite look at the kid. He’s not quite sure how long he’s been standing, staring after Thomas’s jaunty wave, arm wrapped around himself. He’s cold. The floor presses into his toes harder than usual. His socks have a hole in them, the left foot. He aches. 

“Let me  _ go _ , Patrick,” he hears again, and it’s not frantic, but it  _ is  _ a little angry. 

That’s good. Anger is good. Anger makes sense. Brian’s been angry before, at what Pat’s done. Either it works itself out, or it doesn’t. It’s nothing to be afraid of. 

Still. 

“Brian—please—” 

“Would you let me go if I were  _ him _ ?” The tone is savage. 

Pat moves to respond to that—to brush back his hair and sigh and apologize—

but finds that his sigh is a choked sob and his hand sticks in his hair, grabbing the roots. He knows he needs to let Brian free—he has to eventually—the kid can’t stay his prisoner—but his body is refusing to make the necessary moves. “I’m sorry,” he says, helplessly. 

“I won’t jump out the window,” Brian says curtly. “Happy?” 

Pat winces. “I—okay. Okay. I will. Just—let me say this first.” He drags in a breath, and shoves out words without thinking. “I’m sorry. I’m  _ sorry _ . I thought—I didn’t want to—hurt you—or fall in love with you—it just fucking—it just  _ happened,  _ okay. I thought I could…” He pauses. “I don’t know what I thought. Thomas is right. I’m an asshole. I’m so fucking sorry.” 

Brian makes a fierce gesture, but his tone is calm, the way it gets when they’ve been editing a video for three hours and he’s finally realized that his script just  _ isn’t going to work.  _ “Just stop talking and let me  _ loose _ , Pat Gill. Please.” 

Pat’s hands tighten in his hair. His stomach is wrenching. He feels sick, and weak, and he’s fucking  _ afraid _ . “You never have to talk to me again. I swear. But...please. I can’t let you—if you—because of me—I’d never forgive myself.” 

Brian’s eyes soften a little. “Patrick. Please calm down. I understand that. Like, believe me, I can  _ definitely  _ fucking understand.” 

“I—” 

“You don’t have to unlock it yet. Okay?” He waits for Pat’s chin to dip in acknowledgement. “But please, at least come closer, then. You’re freaking me out.” 

Pat wavers, a second—

“ _ Please _ . What if you faint again and I can’t reach you? I don’t have my phone.” 

“Sorry,” Pat folds quickly to the floor. It feels better, to be on the same level where Brian’s sitting. The kid’s got one hand wrapped around a knee. He’s looking at Pat very hard. Reaching out.

The cold sweat from earlier is mostly dry. Pat’s shirt is, he finds, sticking to his back. On the ground, it’s easier to push down the feelings. He knows what to do now. Screw courage to the sticking-place, get ready for pain, and get close enough to Brian for him to throw a punch. 

As soon as he’s within range of fingertips, Brian lunges for him. 

Pat flinches—

the kid’s grabbing him by the neck—

… Brian is  _ kissing  _ him.

It’s nice. He’s soft and warm, and it’s not  _ exactly  _ how it was before, but it’s similar: warm and soft and aggressive and Pat can brush his hands through long soft hair without being pinned down.

“Okay,” Pat says, strangled, as he breaks away for air. “So is this one for the road, or…?” 

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Brian smacks him, hard, on the shoulder and kisses him again, short and forceful, hand curled in the hairs on the nape of Pat’s neck. “Get over here, you  _ asshole _ . If you’re going to touch me when I’m changed you sure as  _ fuck  _ better do it when I’m myself.”

Pat lets himself be wrenched onto the mattress. He goes limp as Brian touches him, strokes a hand through his hair, feels up his shirt, cautious fingers exploring the cuts.

“I’m fine, kid,” he lets out a sigh. “Fluffy’s a little pushy, but he means well.” 

“Now who has Stockholm Syndrome,” Brian murmurs, pressing an exploratory finger into the bruise on Pat’s wrist. It aches pleasantly, the touch. 

“I dunno if there’s a word for what I have,” Pat admits. “I’ll let you go if you call your sister and tell her you’re on the way home.” 

“I’m not on the way home,” Brian says firmly. “But I’ll call her.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Hi Laura…sorry for calling so early…yeah, yeah, I’m okay…not an emergency, promise…um…it’s hard to explain…Pat’s coming over for dinner tonight if that’s okay…thank you…no, I’ll cook…its just gotta be early I got a thing in the evening…oh good tell him to stick around…gnocchi, I think…yeah, no, it’s the other way ‘round…’cause it’s easy… uh huh…see you then, okay?...mmbye.” 

Brian drops his phone on the bed and raises an eyebrow. “Satisfied?” 

“I’m coming to dinner?” Pat says, tentative. 

“Yup. I’m not leaving you here alone after  _ that _ .” 

He sounds high and scratchy-stern, like the shriek of chalk. Pat tries to unpick the overtones. The kid is angry, and exhausted, and sick with remorse, but also that little glint of  _ pity  _ keeps peeking around the edges of his expression. Like Thomas’s this morning. That one’s the worst—it makes Pat twist.  

“You don’t have to babysit me, kid. I’m good. Go have dinner with your sister.”

The laugh, vicious, grief-stricken, hurt, guilty. It’s too much, these layers. Pat can’t figure out what and why. “You don’t get to say no.” 

“All right.”

Brian’s explored all of the cuts and bruises twice over, but the kid doesn’t stop petting him, his hair, his chest, his arms. It feels— _ nice _ —but anxious, obsessive, the jittery movements skirting over his skin. 

“I’m okay,” Pat assures. “It was fine, Bri.” 

“You’re a liar.” The hands don’t pause their checking. The syllables are slipping down into something more barren. “I can’t believe—you  _ knew  _ I’d—why would you—”

“It’s not you, kid.” 

“It’s my fucking  _ body _ , Patrick.” The tears are back. “How can you even let me  _ touch _ you.” 

Pat closes his eyes because no, he was wrong, the pity isn’t the worst, it’s definitely the guilt, the guilt is far far worse. “Brian. Please. The whole—the problem—the whole thing is that I  _ want  _ you to touch me.” 

“I’m a  _ monster _ .” 

“He’s not you,” Pat rubs the hunched shoulder. “And he’s not a monster. You don’t understand. He was rough, but he even—” Pat pauses, unsure if this will upset the kid more, or if it will help him plead his case. “He even stopped, when I screamed.” 

“I know,” Brian says darkly. “I saw.” 

“ _ Shit _ ,” Pat chokes out a wet breath. 

His hands find Brian’s by instinct, because the kid’s making that keening sound he does before he starts to pull his hair out. Brian moans at the pressure but fights anyway, his frantic struggles pressing Pat’s thumbs into his abused wrists. It wrenches some tears out of Pat too, figuring out how to fight the sweaty palms, the little wails of pain and foiled intention, the stupid uselessness of preventing one hurt with another. 

Maybe he should just give in and let the kid beat on his head—maybe it’s better than worsening the bruises—but at least this way, Brian knows he’s  _ trying—  _

More battered, threadbare tears. “How could you let me do that to you, Patrick.”

He’s crying ragged-soft and twitching, he’s back to how he looked first thing this morning, and Pat doesn’t know what to do, so he just opens his mouth and talks and talks. 

“God, kid, I’m sorry. I just don’t…You’re so fucking—brilliant, and beautiful, and complicated—I don’t  deserve to be around you—you’re so goddamn funny and talented—you can sing and you can cook and you’re gorgeous—”

“Why are you saying these things,” Brian’s hiccuping, he’s crying so hard. 

He doesn’t know, why this, why now. “I fucking love everything about you. Your voice, your hair, your stupid jokes, your poetry. Your handwriting. Talking about philosophy. Drinking gin. The way you pissed that girl off at the MOMA. How much you care about doing the right thing. The way you sing on the subway like a maniac.”

“ _ Why _ —” 

“When you disappeared it broke my fucking heart,” Pat says, suddenly. “I thought…”

A sob. “I’m sorry.” 

“I let you kiss me, and I thought I’d  _ killed  _ you, Brian.” 

“That’s stupid,” Brian’s hitching is a little quieter now, because he’s listening, and his hands aren’t fighting quite so hard. “I’m the one that kissed you.” 

“I’m stupid. I’d always…—god, kid, I don’t know—I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t fucking want you. It’s the worst thing I could possibly do. How fucked am I. You’re going through all this. You’re miserable. I need to help you. And I want to  _ fuck  _ you. I’m sick.” 

“You’re not.” 

“I  _ am _ . And then—fuck, Bri, you came back, and you weren’t dead—and I just— _ God.  _ Fluffy is so  _ simple _ . There’s one fucking thing I understand in this whole mess, and that’s what Fluffy wants. Because I want it too. I’m—Jesus, I’m  _ glad  _ it fucking hurt. ” 

It’s good, that the kid’s not crying, although saying this to his open face twists Pat’s gut. 

“We’re the fucking  _ same _ , Brian.” He sighs. “Or no, not even. You can’t blame Fluffy for this. He doesn’t even know you. How much you don’t deserve this. He only knows  _ me. _ ” 

Brian touches Pat’s hair, gently, and he hadn’t realized he’d let go of the kid’s arms, at all. 

“Pat. You don’t deserve to be hurt like that. Ever” 

“I  _ want to _ , Brian,” Pat forces out, and hates how his voice sounds. “Next time I want it to be gentler, but I want there to  _ be  _ a next time. I’m a sick fuck.” 

The kid pushes out a breath. “You’ve already said that.” 

“Yeah, I tend to repeat myself,” Pat rasps. “I talk a lot, when you’re changed. He likes it. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

“I like it too,” Brian brushes back his hair. “And it doesn’t make sense. But it’s—it’s good. The talking. And the touching. We both like it. And if you’re sick then I am too. I’ve already told you. We feel the same. I want to fuck you, even though I shouldn’t. The more I try to hide it the worse he is. ”  

“I know,” Pat smiles wanly. “Sorry he’s blackmailing you into it.” 

“No,” Brian sighs and lets his shoulders drop, as if he’s pushing off those thoughts for the moment. “He’s not. He just—he’s a fucking asshole, but he’s very into  _ honesty _ . And I—fuck, for all this—the worst part is that you were  _ right _ . Kind of.” 

“Huh?” 

“I  _ can  _ push him. A little. I panicked so fucking bad it freaked him out. I think he let you go? Right?” 

“Yeah,” Pat says eagerly. “You could—you did that?”

“I didn’t  _ do  _ it,” Brian gives a vague gesture. “ _ He _ did it. I just tried to like. Let him feel what I was afraid of.” He snorts in dark amusement. “You being dead, to be specific.” 

“It’s nice to know he cares,” Pat says, softly, and it’s not even really sarcastic. 

“He cares. He doesn’t want to murder you.” Brian pauses, and repeats this. “He  _ doesn’t  _ want to murder you. He doesn’t just want to murder everything. At least not you.” 

“Appreciated.” 

“Christ. He  _ likes  _ you, Pat, you fucking lunatic.”

“I like him too,” Pat grins. He’s earnestly excited, and not just because the desperation has leached a little out of the kid’s voice, but also because for the first time in his recollection Brian is talking about Fluffy without looking like he’s going to vomit. “I  _ told  _ you—if you can—if I can help you surface just a little—”

“You two are animals,” Brian moans. “Okay, okay. Let’s talk about this later. After I read your fucking notes, I guess, since you two have apparently been writing love poems to each other all year. I need a goddamn shower. Please let me go.” 

Pat puts in the code, and is glad to see his fingers have stopped trembling. 

“ _ Thank _ you,” Brian exclaims, when he wrenches his ankle free. Pat moves to get up but Brian doesn’t let him. He wraps his legs and arms around Pat’s back and clings on for dear life like a fierce little barnacle. He hisses in Pat’s ear. “Pat Gill. I’m in love with you. I’ve been crushing on you for a year and a half, you’re fucking amazing, and if you  _ ask for it  _ you can have categorical permission to touch me anywhere you want.” He pauses. “As long as you’re reasonably sure I won’t tear your throat out. Things can get pretty ugly when I’m worked up, I hear.”

Pat can’t bury his head in his hands, not with Brian pinning them to his sides, so he just lets out a plaintive sob. “You’re fucking beautiful, Brian. God. You’re literally beautiful all the time.”

“You’re crazy,” Brian brushes his head against Pat’s, rubbing their hair together. “But thank god for it.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Damn, Pat, your face is  _ fucked up _ ,” Jonah says, by way of greeting. Pat dips his head, brushes back his hair, and starts trying to explain.

“He’s a fucking idiot,” Brian sighs in exasperation. “And he got too close to me when I was having a nightmare.” 

“Wowzers,” Jonah breathes, and though Pat can tell he’s surprised, he doesn’t let it wrong-foot him too much. Jonah’s a good improviser. “Lemme get you some ice, dude.”

Apparently  _ ice  _ means  _ a bag of frozen peas  _ around here, and it’s not going to help a day-old injury anyway, but Pat appreciates it. He also appreciates that Brian busies himself making dinner without needing help, and lets Pat sit gingerly at the kitchen table with Jonah and rest his sore body and make idle chit-chat. They banter about open mics and Brian’s abysmal taste in pizza, and Pat watches Brian mix egg yolk into his dough with an expression of adorable concentration.

The kid stumbles, when he hits his wrist on a cabinet door, and doubles over in pain, squeezing it between his legs with a groan. Pat is up in an instant. 

“Fine, fine, I’m fine,” Brian says in exasperation, but Pat settles his hands on the kid’s shoulders anyway.

“You’re done with cooking,” Pat grunts, “I can do whatever you need finished.” 

“It’s  _ fine _ , Pat,” Brian snaps. “You’re fucked up worse than me. Sit down before you fall down.” 

Pat wonders if he can win this argument while also resting half his weight on Brian’s shoulders—but before he can really settle into it, Jonah’s up in the kitchen too, washing his hands, and pushing past them both. 

“I can handle it, B-dog,” Jonah says smoothly. “I’ve seen you do it from here. Easy peasy. Little dough balls. You both just have a seat and let me work the magic.” 

This sounds good to Pat, especially because Brian seem to have already relented and is pulling him toward a chair. The kid presses Pat into it and curls himself on the arm, wrapping his fingers around Pat’s neck and burying his nose in Pat’s hair. He’s breathing heavy, and a wicked thought snakes into Pat’s mind that he would do it again, maybe  _ all  _ of it again, just for this moment. 

Jonah’s not looking at them, but he does throw a comment over his shoulder as he works. “So, are you two in a fight club, or…?” 

“No,” Pat says shortly, at the same time that Brian gives a strained laugh and says “Kind of.” 

Pat startles, but the kid just shrugs. 

“These must be some fucking wild nightmares,” Jonah says, wrenching his eyes briefly away from the potato starch. 

“Let’s just say you had the right idea with the baseball bat,” Pat mutters, and Jonah laughs. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Dinner ends while there’s still light out, with Brian making his sorry-it’s-early-but-I’m-so-tired excuses from under Patrick’s arm, so sweetly coy that Laura giggles at them and Jonah raises a suggestive eyebrow. They have plenty of time, really—usually Bri is pretty neurotic about getting everything in order by the early evening—but there’s no reason he can’t stay up and resist the pull of the moon by a few hours. 

Pat knows that he should be afraid—if not of what the monster will do to him tonight, at least of what Brian will do to try to stop him—but his fear feels far away, with his hand on the small of Brian’s back and the arm around his waist holding him close. He chooses to release himself from worry, at least until they’re back at home tonight. There, they can debate what to do. There, Pat can re-make his apologies and his ultimatums, and Brian can reject or retaliate as he will. There, he can prepare himself to face the night. 

Here, it’s only dusk, and in the unworldly gloaming he lets Brian tug his sleeve into the bedroom. The space is familiar but not yet routine, and Pat has to step carefully in the dim grey-purple to spare his shins from striking on some dull ill-lit edge. The clever fingers pull his forearms forward, making Pat chase Brian’s mouth.

Kissing the kid’s a goddamn spring-time sonnet. His lithe limbs threading backward to the bed make Pat feel clumsy, lumbering—a foolish mortal seduced by some enchanted creature. All the while, Brian’s mouth licks against him, hot breath from parted lips oddly sweet, his hands teasing up Pat’s shirt with purpose. It’s like it’s been before—the soft skin, the gentle press of calloused fingertips—and yet it’s different, no gin, no fangs, no tears, no trembling. 

It break’s Pat’s heart to break away, to break the spell, but mortals have to be the practical ones. “Shouldn’t we be getting back,” he murmurs.

“Soon,” Brian hums in unconcern, steering Pat toward the bed. “Let me kiss you. I’ve been  _ wanting  _ this.” 

Well— 

a few minutes more shouldn’t hurt—

The attentions are insistent, a touch bolder than you might expect, from someone as gentle and sweet by day as Brian. His tongue laves up Pat’s willing neck, hands pull his shirt up, catching skinny wrists. They hurt each other, where they knock their bruises, but neither pauses at the hiss of pain. The kid knows what he wants, and he’s taking it, thanks very much. Pat lets himself be taken. 

A few times, Brian pulls back from the kiss, studies Pat’s face while straddling him. His face is screwed up with desire and guilt and determination, and that expression, more than anything, makes Pat’s whole body unwind its wretched tension. He feels—he’s  _ felt _ —for months now—much the same. 

Pat doesn’t know what his own face looks like, but he’d bet it probably is something like naked wonder. 

“I’m sorry I kissed you and ran away,” Brian says, sudden, as if a memory has been dislodged. “That was cruel. I wasn’t thinking about…how it would feel.” 

“I’ve already forgiven you for that,” Pat points out. 

“I’m sorry anyway,” Brian breathes, tracing his fingers up Pat’s bare chest. The sooty light makes it hard to see the rosy tint of Brian’s cheeks. Pat wonders if it also hides the bruises. He hopes so. He doesn’t mind them, but Brian won’t like to look at them, he reckons. Like Pat’s notes, they’re probably best kept secret, hidden evidence of things the kid would rather forget. 

Except he’s tracing his palm along them now. Pat hisses out a breath when the thumb runs over his nipple. The movements all are so deliberate. Fingers trace the tendons in his neck, brush loose strands of hair, skirt the corner of his hip. Pat feels like an antiquated instrument, and Brian is plucking his dusty strings. 

“Can I…?” Brian shifts himself to straddle one leg only, kissing feather-soft on Pat’s stomach. 

“Of course,” Pat says before he registers the gentle fingers unbuttoning his pants and understands the question he was asked.

“I just don’t get it,” Brian exhales, and oh, it’s not fair, it’s not  _ fair  _ that the kid’s brow is furrowed in complex emotions and his tone is layered with questions and all this when he’s touching Pat for the very  _ first time _ . Pat whimpers at the strain of trying to listen while also trying to feel every ghostly brush of skin. “You risked your fucking life, Pat. And for what?” 

His tone is affectionate, though, Pat thinks, or maybe just anyone sounds affectionate when stroking down the underside of your dick, soft and slow. 

“When I was little—I was taught— _ ah _ —that you’ve got to take some risks—if you want anything worthwhile.” 

Brian’s other hand tickles him. “I’m not sure I love this get-busy-living-or-get-busy-dying approach to parenting.” His tone is wry. “I bet you got to eat homemade halloween candy, too.” 

“Yeah, and it was fucking bomb,” Pat says, with feeling. “Not  _ one  _ single razorblade.” 

Brian laughs. “I’m not convinced even that would have stopped you.” 

“Maybe not,” Pat admits, and reaches a tentative hand up Brian’s waist, touching for skin under the shirt. 

“Uh-uh,” Brian scolds. “You already got to touch. Here.” He detaches Pat’s fingers and kisses them, then lifts them up above his head with gentleness. “Keep those up there and I’ll keep touching.” 

Pat’s heart thrills with need and he wraps his fingers around the headboard with firm conviction. It’s too dark now to really see Brian’s face, just dim outlines and the glint of reflected light off his glasses. The shadow tugs, insistent and Pat lifts his hips to let the kid strip off his pants. Boxers come too, and he’s bare and accessible and thrilled with something tense and sharp he chooses to interpret as desire. 

“Why aren’t you afraid of me,” Brian whispers, and sucks a dark new mark into Pat’s hip. 

“You’re not scary,” he avows in a hiss of desperate breath. 

“I fucked you  _ prison-style _ , Pat Gill,” Brian murmurs. “Until you screamed.” 

A dusky chuckle finds its way through Pat’s chest. “I’m one sick puppy, Bri.” 

“Are you afraid of  _ anything _ ?” 

Pat breathes. “I’m terrified you’ll leave. Or that I’ll wake up and it’ll all be a dream.” 

“Charmer,” Brian purrs, hot breath on Pat’s cock, and it sounds like a smile. “You know just what to say.”

“Shut me up, then,” Pat dares, then gasps, as Brian flicks his tongue, chiding, at the tip. 

“All right, I will.” 

Words do come undone then, as Brian keeps his promises. The mouth that touches him is—not  _ so  _ gentle—but tender—plunges forth—explores with confidence the shuddering fragile landscape below. It’s strange, that even without the prick of fangs, Pat still feels just a hair’s-breadth from disaster. He struggles not to gasp when Brian’s hands settle, one on his hip, one wrapped tight around the base of his cock. Pat’s fingers stray, he needs to—he  _ has  _ to touch that soft shock of hair—to know this is  _ real _ — 

“Be good,” Brian murmurs, pressing aside the fingers. “Keep out of the way.”

Pat finds tears in his eyes as he wraps his palm around the wooden bar again, grips tight. “Sorry.” 

“Forgiven,” the hum is swift, and swifter still the touching resumes. The feeling—it erases all concerns—not just because it’s  _ good _ and  _ hot  _ and  _ fucking hell  _ the kid can use his tongue—but also because Pat’s never let himself imagine what this could feel like—Brian’s owl-eyed face peering up at him—the soft familiar sounds of pleased success—the clever fingers working at his cock—the weight of the kid’s body, firm and real—his own pathetic hitching breaths and pleas that drift off into the dispassionate moonlight— 

“I’m—Bri—I—”

“Not yet,” Brian breathes, and pulls back just a second. “Let me look at you.” 

He draws up on his knees. Brian’s dressed, but mussed, shadow of his tousled hair and clothes all ragged edges in the murky light. Pat can’t see his body, but he can see it in his mind’s eye, smooth lines tracing under these disheveled ones, soft skin—right now it will be pale as ivory and undertraced with bluish veins—in a few hours, tawny-bright, the lines obscured.

Brian is looking long, and thinking, and it’s hard to imagine what he sees. Pat hasn’t even glanced at himself in the mirror, to see what reddish blotches mar his sallow skin. It might look better in this light though, the greyish-evening sucking away whatever ugly contrast made Thomas wince this morning. 

“I’m going to finish you off,” Brian whispers. “You’re gonna stay perfectly still until I say so, okay? Just exactly like you are. Can you do that for me?” 

“Anything,” Pat breathes. 

It’s heaven, the return of the hot wet mouth, and Pat closes his eyes against the desperate urge to buck into it. Fingers and tongue work at him expertly, and he hasn’t really let himself feel like this for… _ so  _ long. He prays it doesn’t count as moving, to let out a long low moan that ends, somehow, in Brian’s name. 

It comes—too quick—he would have liked it to last forever—to be stuck here, pinned between Brian’s sheets and his tongue— forgiven for the sins of yesterday and dedicated to sin more tomorrow—not day and yet not night. But it isn’t to be. He relinquishes. 

As he comes, he feels the roil of every muscle in his body, and loses track for a moment of the bed, the dark, the coming night, of Brian, of fear, of everything but the deep hum of pleasure and its transience. 

He feels— 

the soft withdrawal of Brian’s mouth— 

the tickling wispy hairs as they brush by— 

the shift of mattress beside his body— 

the salty-bitter taste on Brian’s lips— 

the click of cold metal around his wrist— 

the soft, apologetic caress of fingertips in his hair. 

“I’m sorry,” Brian murmurs into Pat’s mouth. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“You clever bastard,” Pat moans, as Brian draws away and leaves him on the bed. 

“Sorry, Pat,” the kid repeats, running his hand through his hair. “I can’t trust you not to hurt yourself.” 

It’s too dark to see the kid’s face, but Pat closes his eyes anyway, against the ache. He forces his body up, and turns, but doesn’t bother pulling against the cuff. He knows it will hold. 

“ _ God _ .” It’s impossible to fight the welling feelings— 

fear and anger and loss and wretched disappointment and guilt and expectations shattered and terror for what Brian will do and gratefulness that at least  _ once _ — 

—he can’t finish the thoughts, so he just lets his tone be raw, whatever the fuck it sounds like. “You really had me going, kid.” 

“Patrick,” Brian says sharply. “I did not.” 

Pat draws up his knees and curls, because although he knows it makes him look like an awkward overgrown child, he needs to not be completely bare, right now. “You did. I thought—”

“Pat,  _ stop _ .” The hand on his ankle makes him flinch. “I didn’t  _ lie _ . I didn’t  _ seduce  _ you.” He pauses, then relents. “Well, okay, I seduced you a little. But I still want to fuck your brains out. I just don’t want Fluffy to put you in the hospital, okay? Not before I get a turn with you first.”

This flirty-ferocious tone is confusing, but promising. Pat lets the thuds against his ribcage shake him back, opens his eyes. Brian is crouching in front of him, peering up. 

“So what are you doing, then, Brian.” 

“I gotta go deal with Fluffy,” Brian waves a hand, “And then I’ll be back tomorrow morning and you can yell at me and I’ll yell at you and then we make out until we’re sick of it. Okay?” 

“Please don’t go,” Pat says, and finds that once the anguish of betrayal has receded it leaves a crosscurrent of desperate fear. “I can’t— _ please  _ don’t do this.”

“I’ll be okay,” Brian says firmly. “Call Thomas if you need someone to check on me. I’ll leave the key under the mat.” 

“You don’t have to do this,” Pat tries again. “He won’t hurt me. We can make it work.”

“Maybe,” Brian cuts him off. “But I’m not going to figure it out tonight. Not enough to slow him down. So let’s give your ass a break, all right?” 

“But kid—you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Probably,” Brian nods. “You can have the next round, all right?” 

Pat swallows a laugh because he thinks it might sound more like a sob. He wants to ask about his  _ other  _ fear, the other reason he’s too terrified to let Brian wander off into the night, alone. He doesn’t know how to word it, how to be delicate, how not to make it gross and foul. But Karen would just say it. 

“You won’t run off and kill yourself?”

“I won’t. I promise.” 

It sounds earnest enough, but Pat is so  _ afraid _ —  

Brian pauses. “I wouldn’t—” he laughs, a little tinkling-sad and breathy sound. “I swear on my honor I wouldn’t kill myself and leave you chained up naked for my sister to find.” 

“It’d make a hell of a eulogy,” Pat mutters, but believes him. 

“I’m sorry I have to go,” Brian says, and shoves himself in Patrick’s face to kiss him quick. “Here’s your phone. I’m putting the key on the bookshelf. Just shout for Laura or Jonah if you’re desperate, they’ll hear you.” 

“I could just shout for them now,” Pat points out. “The instant that you leave.” 

“You could,” Brian cocks his head, in the dark. “But I think you won’t. You’re stark fucking naked and you look like hell.” 

“I’m a good liar,” Pat sulks. 

“You are,” Brian agrees. “You could probably come up with something. But please don't. Just trust me. I trusted  _ you _ . I’ll be back tomorrow. Promise.” 

With that, Pat’s left for the evening, anxious, alone, and desperately hoping that Brian’s better at keeping promises than he is.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the emotional rollercoasterrrr continuessss. man, this chapter gave me trouble. it is hard to write people talking shit out without just recapitulating the whole fic.


	4. resurrection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My mama always used to tell me: 'If you can't find somethin' to live for, you best find somethin' to die for." 
> 
>  
> 
> **—Tupac Shakur**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: mentions (non-graphic) of all events from previous chapters, therefore an angst bomb

The room is cold. Pat doesn’t bother gathering up the sheet around himself, though.

It’s not a self-flagellating thing. Feeling cold is kind of nice, to be honest. Very physical. Like when you’re going out for a run, and you’re not overheated _yet_ , but you know you _will_ be, so you’re grateful for the brisk air before it even does you any good. Brian hates being cold. Kid’ll wear like four jackets if that’s what it takes. It’s odd, that his room here has got the thermostat so far down.

Pat _could_ call Laura, if he wanted. He knows this.

That’d be humiliating…well. Maybe it’d be humiliating. Humiliation is the sort of thing that really exists in your own head. It’s only there if you feel it. Pat knows he doesn’t always feel the things he’s supposed to feel. Hard to say if he’d be humiliated or not.

It’s not like she would laugh at him. Laura wouldn’t make it weird. She’d probably look chagrined, more than anything. Confused, worried. _What happened, Pat? Do you need help?_ He’s not afraid of having to lie to her. As long as the story is embarrassing, she’d never mention it again. She’s decent like that.

Maybe she turns the thermostat down, the week Brian’s gone. That’d be practical.

Being naked in front of people you know is emotional, but it’s all about context. If you get pantsed in seventh-grade gym class, it’s humiliating. If your asshole roommate catches you _in flagrante_ with a hot senior, it’s a triumph. If your clothes catch on fire, and you get them off just in time to save yourself from third-degree burns, it’s a fucking Christmas miracle. Context.

This context is pretty out there, though, so it’s hard for Pat to know what he’d feel.

  
  
  
  
  
  


There’s a few books saved on his phone. Some poetry.

Pat picks _Howl_ , because the title tickles something like humor, but the content is incomprehensible. He finds nearly every sentence a tangled morass, and he doesn’t know if his brain is slow or if the thing is trying to make his brain feel slow on purpose, because it’s _artsy_. Fucking poetry.

The second try goes better, because he whispers it aloud like a stupid child. Traces it over, syllable-by-syllable, under his breath, popping the p’s and k’s with little staccato puffs of air, letting the words wash over him as if they’re being read aloud by someone else and he’s not particularly listening to _them_ either. It _is_ quite pleasantly rhythmic, in its way. Like listening to rap in Turkish or something.

He goes through it a third time, seeing if the pattering sound has secretly deposited hidden meanings. It hasn’t. Goddammit. That means he’s probably supposed to _engage with the text._

Brian says that rereading is better reading, for poetry. _You have to be patient, Patrick. The first time, just try to get through it_. The first read is a wash, apparently. Your brain is fighting too hard to make sense, and gets irritable when it, inevitably, is total bullshit.

 _That’s good,_ the kid always laughs at him. _You’re supposed to kinda hate it_ . _Just let it get in your head. Next time you’ll be able to give in to it a little more. I really fucking hated T.S. Eliot at first._

Pat doesn’t know if he hates this Ginsberg or not. He hates that every sentence is a whole movie’s worth of visual imagery. It takes forever to conjure up, and once he’s done it, he doesn’t even like what he’s looking at. If this is how he’s supposed to read it, this poem needs a fucking intermission or two.

It’s only been a half hour. Pat fiddles with the cuff, fits his pinkie in the gap between metal and skin, and tries again.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Brian’s probably home by now. Assuming he’s gone home. Pat wonders—

should he let himself wonder?—

or is it better just to—

try not to visualize—

—well, that’s fucking stupid. He’s going to wonder at some point tonight, so it might as well be now.

Pat closes his eyes and sits cross-legged, because when Brian gets home that’s how he’ll probably sit. He’ll strip—not naked—maybe to boxers. Pat knows his boxers are red, today. He put them on the kid this morning, after all. Cross-legged, shirtless, on the mattress. That’s how he’ll be. Balancing his blue phone on his knee. Papery-purple skin under his eyes. Taking deep breaths that smell too strong and make him feel sick. He’ll try to get tired sitting up, which is stupid, but he does it.

He’ll probably be cold. Pat usually puts blankets on him. He has to wait until the kid’s asleep, because Brian rejects them when he’s awake. _There’s no point, Pat. He’ll just wreck it_. That’s true, but Pat hates watching the kid curled up half-naked, arms around himself, wringing out a few hours of sleep in rags like some kind of Dickensian orphan.

 _I’m not even cold_ . _You have the thermostat at like seventy-five._ This is true. It’s not really about the temperature. He can adjust that. Pat just finds the tableau too fucking pitiful.

 _I’m not pitiful. I’m practical_ . _It’s absolutely stupid to just give me things to ruin, Patrick._

But Walmart has cheap fleece blankets, and they’re not built to last long anyway. What’s the harm. Maybe Fluffy enjoys some stimulation. Two birds, one stone.  

Damn. Brian probably forgot to turn up the thermostat. Should he text…?

Mmm. Probably no point. The kid might already have gotten drowsy. He lobs his phone away, when he gets sleepy, and lies down. If it’s out of his reach, and the text buzzes, it’ll stress him out. He won’t want to unlock himself, once he’s settled down. He’s neurotic about that. But he also doesn’t like to miss texts. He has Pat check them, usually. Pat just tells him _not important_ or _Laura says she loves you._ Those are kind of the only two things.

How many hours, before he gets to sleep, tonight? Pat can’t really predict. He doesn’t know how long it typically takes when he’s not there. For all he knows, it’s faster.

It’s only ten. Moonrise is at 11:13 tonight. The timing’s tricky. It doesn’t correlate the way you’d hope. Sometimes, the instant Brian’s head droops in exhaustion, the change starts, moon or no. Sometimes, the gods of wretched things smile down on them, and Brian’s poor beaten body gets a couple hours to rest. They haven’t worked out a formula, despite all the fucking data. It’s still unpredictable.

 _How are you fucking better at guessing this than me,_ Brian groused, last time he lost the bet. Pat just smirked and picked pizza again.

Tonight, he doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter, really. Either the kid’s already hurting himself, or he will be in a few hours. Fluffy won’t know where Pat is. He won’t be able to communicate with Brian. Even if he can get through, he won’t understand Brian’s complex motivations. He’ll just be angry and alone.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The room isn’t quiet, but literally no rooms are. Even in a blackout, when the humming in the walls silences, there’s always noise. It’s city noises here, but even in Maine there’s noises—crickets, owls, distant howling, rustling wind and crunching leaves. It’s never quiet anywhere, not really. _Quiet_ is just a shitty metaphor for _this noise is too uninteresting_ _to block out your thoughts._

_Just trust me. I trusted you._

Pat’s trying, he really is.

He _does_ trust the kid, but maybe not in the right way. He knows that Brian has a plan. He knows that plan will work. He’s never been afraid that Brian couldn’t pull something off, no matter how preposterously elaborate it is in execution. That’s the fucking _problem._

Most likely, the plan is just to give them both some space. To save Pat physical pain. To save Brian worry. To get some distance from the fucking nightmare hellscape wonderland that’s been the last few days. They both belong in the ER or at the shrink, rather than in Brian’s bed, kissing and fucking like lovers. It’s pretty rational to want some space to think. A very Brian thing to want. Kid loves _thinking._

Pat doesn’t work like that. The crazy-chaos pace of this week felt right to him. Things felt like they were hurtling toward a resolution. Pat prefers to steer the ship even if it ends up dashed on the rocks.

Stupidly, he’d thought it might not, this time. That fucking optimistic streak again.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Not even eleven yet. _Christ_. Maybe he should just turn off his fucking phone.

What would be the worst thing, that would happen, then. If it were off.

Brian might call, to talk to him. He’s not sure. He doesn’t understand Brian’s motivations. Why Brian’s done this thing. Or really, why Brian’s asking Pat to do this thing, because they both _damn well know_ that if Pat decided to, he could be home less than an hour. One yell for help. One cab ride. That’s all.

So it’s all a test, really.

Pat curls his nails into his palm. He doesn’t mind being tested. He just doesn’t know how to _pass_.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


What if he’s _not_ at home.

It could be that Brian _expects_ him to fail this test. He’s failed every test like this before. The kid will have a contingency plan, for certain. A plan for if Pat shows up at his own door, angry and humiliated and demanding audience with his other half.

There’s no reason Pat has to stay here, in Brian’s room. And there’s no reason Brian has to go to Pat’s.

 _God_ , what a wrench that would be, showing up at his empty apartment. No way to know where the kid is. If he’s safe. Fuck, Pat hopes he’d leave a note, at least. Doesn’t he at least deserve that? A quick post-it, to tell him not to worry? A breakup text? A poem? A letter to—

No. It’s not that. Brian _said_ he’s coming back. And he said… _Call Thomas if you need someone to check on me. I’ll leave the key under the mat._ This meant that he was going home. And Pat believed him.

Was he lying? Unlikely. Brian really doesn’t lie very often. Tricks, sure, but not bald-faced fabrications of emotion. It would be strange if he could force out an olive branch like that. His tone was so earnest.

That being said, it does fit the formula. Pat’s been trying to teach the kid to lie for months now.

_Just say it quick and direct, kid. Simple sentence. Then add one detail. Then let it lie. Don’t move on, don’t dwell. The ball’s out of your court, and chances are they’re not going to pick it up._

Brian’s abysmal at it. He spends too long thinking about possible responses, constructing elaborate lore that will explain their underpinnings. Good for improv, terrible for deception. People don’t carry around complicated truths in their heads. Well, most people. Brian might, for all Pat knows.

Six months in, Brian’s still a pretty shitty liar—

well, that or he’s spent six months stringing Pat along just to get better at lying to _him_. Probably not that, though. That’d be a wild amount of investment, just to get better at lying to one person.

Pat draws his knees into his chest.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Stop. _Stop._ This thinking is too deep. Too much. People don’t think this much, about why they do things. Brian didn’t think this much, about this plan. He’s tired, and worked up, and terrified. He’s trying to save them pain. He’s trying to do the right thing. It all makes sense, presuming that Brian is more desperate to avoid hurting Pat than anything else, right now.

Of course, that might not be the case.

Brian might be _trying_ to hurt Pat. He has enough reason. This would be—

just about the cruelest way.

A sort of poetic justice. _Just trust me_ . He could have already done it. While Pat sits uselessly in Brian’s bed, remembering the echoes of Brian’s touch on his skin. God, it would be _artfully_ cruel. When no one came in the morning. When Pat finally relented and called—Laura, most likely—and she found Pat’s humiliated naked body, alive and trusting and fucking useless. The only person who could have stopped him.

 _God_ , he hopes the kid doesn’t hate him that much.

The tears are fucking stupid. What good do they do anyone? Who are they _for_ , Patrick?

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

> **Thomas  
> ** **I need a favor  
> ** **I know  
> ** **I already owe you one  
>  ** **But please**
> 
> **o’gill the kid already emailed me  
> ** **im at your place  
>  ** **we’re eating midnight falafel without you**
> 
> **God  
>  ** **Thank christ**
> 
> **fuck christ** ****  
> **thank ME  
> ** **he tried to say hed be fine alone  
> ** **but also could i pretty please  
> ** **drop by in the morning  
> ** **to make sure hes not bleeding out  
>  ** **youre both fucking crazy**
> 
> **Thank you  
>  ** **God thank you**
> 
> **damn straight.  
> ** **and im getting crumbs all over your couch too  
> ** **brian keeps trying to clean them up without telling me off  
> ** **its hilarious  
>  ** **he wants to know if youre okay**
> 
> **I’m fine  
>  ** **Is he?**
> 
> **hes a little jumpy  
>  ** **hes worried about you**
> 
> **About me**
> 
> **yeah  
> ** **he told me what he did  
>  ** **you got PLAYED son**
> 
> **Like a fiddle.**
> 
> **i like him  
> ** **cute face  
> ** **total asshole  
>  ** **hes devious enough for you at least**
> 
> **He’s certainly something**
> 
> **are you really okay though?**
> 
> **Brian asking or you**
> 
> **is the answer different?**
> 
> **I don’t know**
> 
> **the kids going to sleep soon  
>  ** **he wants to call you but hes afraid youre mad**
> 
> **Tell him to call  
>  ** **I’m not mad**
> 
> **all right  
> ** **in a minute hes brushing his teeth  
> ** **do you need me to come over there?  
> ** **he gave me his key  
>  ** **i can let you loose**
> 
> **I’m fine**
> 
> **aint you gotta pee at some point**
> 
> **I’m fine Thomas  
>  ** **I’ll live**
> 
> **youre a kinky slut**
> 
> **Thanks thomas.**
> 
> **actually  
> ** **thats a dick thing to say  
>  ** **sorry**
> 
> **Its fine  
>  ** **I know it’s a joke**
> 
> **well its a shitty one in context  
> ** **im still trying to uh like  
>  ** **process this crazy shit**
> 
> **Understandable  
>  ** **Sorry to drag you into it**
> 
> **eh  
> ** **he bought dinner  
> ** **and also  
> ** **maybe i flatter myself  
> ** **but i like to think that i helped a little  
>  ** **re: your ability to walk today**
> 
> **More than a little**
> 
> **all right the kid is calling  
> ** **ill be on the couch  
>  ** **also: i drank all your beer  
>  ** **< 3 **

  
  
  


“Hey, kid.”

“Pat. I’m—are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Brian. Same as before. You set up for the night?”  

“Yeah. I told Thomas to leave but he won’t go.”

“He just wants to eat everything in my fridge, most likely.”

“He’s gonna sleep on the couch. You don’t think he’ll—he’s not gonna try to sneak a peek, right?”

“No, no. Thomas can be a dick but not like _that_. He has sense.”

“I know I can get loud, though. I told him…”

“I’ll tell him to text me if he gets worried.”

“You need to sleep, Pat.”

“Heh. Sure thing.”

“I’m _sorry_ . I just—I didn’t—I’ll _hurt_ you, Pat. You can’t deny it. You can’t let Fluffy hurt you like that.”

“I don’t understand why it’s better to let him hurt _you_. At least I can negotiate a little. You’re just at his fucking mercy, Brian.”

“He’s _in my body_ , Pat. It’s different.”

“No it’s fucking not. You don’t deserve to deal with him alone.”

“Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad. I’m fucking _frustrated_ . I’m trying to _help_. You always run away.”

“You always get too close!”

“Just let me _help_.”

“I don’t _want_ you to help. It hurts you.”

“It helps you more.”

“I’m not a fucking utilitarian, Pat Gill. Some things are just _wrong_. Like raping your best friend.”

 _Sigh_.

“Would you rape Thomas, to avoid getting hurt?”

“...”

“Yeah it’s not a fucking easy question, is it, Patrick.”

“...I admit it’s easier from this side.”

“ _Thank you_. Okay. At least. Progress.”

“Although I’d probably at least see what Thomas thought about it.”

“Bullshit.”

“I might. It might turn out Thomas is into it.”

“That’s fucked up, Pat.”

“It is. But yknow. Thomas is kinda fucked up. And on a good day he thinks I’m a seven.”

“ _Patrick._ Don’t say that shit about yourself.”

“Look, he said it.”

“I don’t care. That’s mean.’

“Uh, honestly, I thought it was a compliment.”

“ _THOMAS! PAT IS NOT A SEVEN!!”_

_“...keep his ego in check…”_

_“That is NEGGING Thomas! That’s mean.”_

_“...biased…”_

_“I am NOT.”_

_“...come up…having serious conver…”_

_“IT IS serious. Pat says stuff—”_

_“—”_

“Don’t fucking mute the phone, Brian. Just hang up while you talk about me, then.”

“—sorry. I’ll fight it out with him later.”

“Don’t get worked up, kid. Thomas knows you can land a ten.”

“Pat. What are you—I’m not _worked up_ and it’s not—I’m not—that is _ridiculous_ —”

“You’re ridiculous. You’re tired. Shouldn’t you be asleep.”

“Fucking _stop it,_ Patrick, why are you so _mean_ to yourself.”

“Kid, are you _crying_?”

“ _Yes_!”

“Jesus, why?”

“I don’t know. I just—you always—treat yourself like trash.”

“I think you’re overreacting, Bri. It was a joke.”

“It’s _not._ It’s not. You’re so mean.”

“Calm down, calm down. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to upset you. It was a joke.”

“I know. But it’s also. You said—that—that—”

“Whatever I said was probably stupid, kid. Almost certainly. I’m sorry.”

“You said you’re _glad_ it hurt.”

“...I didn’t mean it.”

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t know, Brian. I don’t know. What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry for what I did? That I’m not sorry? That I thought it was the right thing to do? That I knew it was gonna hurt you? That it turned me on? That if Thomas hadn’t showed up, I would have done it again? I would have fucked you again? And again, and again, without _ever_ telling you?”

“I—”

“I’m not a _good person,_ Brian.”

“Stop saying that.”

“It’s fucking true. Ask Thomas. Ask anyone.”

“Fuck them. You’re _mine._ I get to forgive you.”

“...”

“I _forgive you_ , Patrick. Are you listening?

“...okay.”

“And what’s more—wait— _okay?_ ”

“Okay. I accept your forgiveness. We cool?”

“...this can’t be that easy.”

“It can. I don’t have to deserve it. It’s a Catholic thing, kid. I accept it. Thank you.”

 _Sniff_.

“You okay, kid?”

“...I’m sorry I tied you to my bed.”

“It’s fine.”

“Please don’t—don’t say that. It’s not fine. But hurting you again is also not fine. I just didn’t have a fine option, okay. I’m sorry.”

“I can relate, Bri. I really can. I’m not happy about it, but I’ll survive. I’ll be here in the morning. I’ll forgive you, if you make sure _you_ get here in the morning, too. Be as late as you want. But please for the love of _Christ_ , be alive. Please.”

“I will, Patrick. I will. I will. I promise.”  

“God, I wish I could put in a word with Fluffy. He _hates_ being stood up.”

“I know. But I mean—he’s been mad before. I’ll try to let him know you’re coming back.”

“That’s good. Thank you. _Thank you_. I know it’s hard to talk him down.”

“I can try. Thank you for letting me try. I love you.”

“...”

“Pat?”

“S-sorry, kid.”

“I love you. I love you I love you I love you, I’ve been in love with you for ages. I love you to _pieces_.”

“God, _please_ stop. I c-can’t—”

“No. I love you so fucking much. Fluffy loves you too. You can cry about it but it won’t stop us. We’re gonna tell you _every day_ until you run away.”

“I’ve _never_ run away.”

“We know.”

“God. I hope he takes it easy on you, kid.”

“I hope so too, Patrick. Can you stay on the phone until I fall asleep? I might break it but—I need a new one anyway.”

“Of course, Bri. Of course.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Just put it near your head. I’ll read to you until you sleep. I’ve got some poetry that makes no sense.”

 _Yawn_. “Okay. I love you, Patrick.”

“Love you too, Bri. Say hi to Fluffy for me.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Pat doesn’t have to read for long. The kid’s fucking exhausted, from crying and yelling and cooking, and the moon and the gin, from keeping secrets and from telling the truth, from being afraid of Fluffy and afraid for Pat, from making decisions and mistakes and trying to do the right thing. Soon his breathing evens out and he doesn’t respond to his name, and Pat hangs up after a few minutes of quiet susurration.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

> **you sleeping yet**
> 
> **Nope**
> 
> **sitting tender?**
> 
> **It’s fine**
> 
> **gonna be honest  
> ** **these effusive texts  
> ** **are not exactly comforting  
> ** **im worried about you being alone  
> ** **i can just come sit with you  
>  ** **if you want**
> 
> **I’d rather you stay there**
> 
> **so i can do what?!?  
> ** **look brian told me  
> ** **if something goes wrong  
> ** **fucking run  
>  ** **or like call the marines or whatever**
> 
> **Good advice**
> 
> **yup  
> ** **i like the kid and all  
>  ** **but not that much**
> 
> **I’m glad you’re there anyway  
> ** **I really am all right.  
> ** **I’m going to read for a while  
> ** **Text me if he wakes you up  
>  ** **The screaming will probably freak you out**
> 
> **this is the fucking kinkiest threesome  
>  ** **okay  
>  ** **tty on the other side**
> 
>  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy easter & pesach. may you be spared death or resurrected therefrom, according to your preference.


	5. master of two worlds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There has been too much moonlight and self-pity:  
> Let us have done with it: for now at last  
> Never has sun more boldly paced the sky,  
> Never were hearts more eager to be free,  
> To kick down worlds, lash forests; you and I
> 
>  
> 
> **— Philip Larkin**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning 4 sex (the nice kind). in some ways this is the last chapter, and next chapter is an epilogue.

Pat’s surprised to wake up.

Didn’t expect to have fallen asleep. It’s been a few hours though, because it’s barely dawn. And Brian is—

_ Oh _ . Kissing him. Brian is kissing him. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Brian says, between the kisses, and Pat laughs wet and joyous into his mouth. “I love you.” God, he’s here, he’s  _ here _ , enough of Brian is here to walk and breathe and want to kiss him. “I’m sorry to wake you.” Why the apology, why, this is the best possible awakening, enough to warrant a daylight celebration, a desperate grateful ritual for the sun gods. “Do you hate me forever?” These breathy little statements dash out in between kissing, touching, moving, wriggling proof of life and future and promises upheld. “D’you want to leave?” Leave,  _ leave _ , why would he stay all this time only to  _ leave _ . “Or should I send Thomas home?” Oh, God, no one could possibly understand this wave of questions, not punctuated by such frantic fearful loving kisses and sunny relief that roils through Pat’s whole body, licking warmth into all the corners and banishing the shadows. 

“Kid, please,” he begs, strained, and Brian draws back sharp, attentive, nervous. “I don’t hate you—” 

ye Gods, more grateful kissing—

“but  _ please  _ don’t sit on me. I need to pee.” 

“Of course, of course, sorry sorry sorry,” Brian’s springing up in an instant to find the key. “I’m so sorry. I’ll tell Thomas to go then?” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Pat curls his fingers in the kid’s hair, pets, pulls, even though it makes  Brian’s trembling hands struggle even more with the unlocking. Pat can bear a few seconds’ delay to make sure his fingertips affirm the truth of every other sense. He brushes them across Brian’s face. New cuts. “Are you all right?” 

“Yeah, yes, I’m fine,” the kid shakes his head, shakes off the touches. “Here, you’re free—let me get your clothes—”

“Thanks,” Pat throws his legs over edge the bed, and watches the kid grasp around for clothes, a little blurry in the lavender light. He’s jerky, like he gets, but not favoring a limb or wincing hard in pain. He looks all right. For the most part. “You cut your face.” 

“Yeah,” Brian sighs, and touches it. “It’s stupid. Face and head. It bled a lot. But that’s it, really. Nothing too bad else.” 

“Why stupid?” Pat’s half-dressed, but Brian’s tone pauses him. It’s a little rueful, in some peculiar way.

"It’s my fault,” Brian says, rubbing his hair with a hand and wincing as his fingers touch fresh cuts. “I made him cry.” They come away bloody, just a touch, the fingertips. 

Pat doesn’t know how to process this statement, but of course, he supposes, Fluffy can cry. He’s never seen it, he doesn’t think, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t be so. He wants to push further, but Brian is moving fast and happy, as if shaking off these pensive nighttime thoughts, and Pat gets the strong feeling that the right thing to do is let the kid bounce a little, to settle into the lighter-hearted groove of the day.  

“So you’ll stay? I made Thomas come with me, in case you wanted to leave. So he could walk you home.” 

“Let’s take him to breakfast,” Pat says, impulsively. “We owe him one. If you’re up to it.”

Brian grins brilliantly. “Good idea. Oh, Patrick, thank you.  _ Thank you _ .” 

“You’re welcome. I’ll be  _ right back _ , kid, hang on half a second.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


If it is early Wednesday morning, and you are bruised or bleeding or ghostly pale and throwing nervy half-horrified glances at your weird companions, Denny’s is the breakfast place of choice. Pat can’t help but smile as their sleepy waitress fails to even glance at Brian’s red-streaked face. Her blasé affect, flat and uncomplicated, seems to settle Thomas a little bit as he stutters out  _ a booth for three please _ . They’re not even the roughest-looking folks in here, Pat thinks. God bless this terrifying city. 

Up to now, Thomas was too shaken even to tease them much. Maybe it had all been a little more than he expected. The screaming, probably. And head wounds bleed a lot. He keeps darting glances at Brian, half-anxious and half-impressed, like he’s just watched the kid dislocate his shoulder recreationally, and he doesn’t want to see it  _ again _ , precisely, but it was  _ quite  _ the show. 

Pancakes perk Thomas up. He eats, and asks non-stupid questions, and drinks two mugs of terrible coffee. Brian picks at eggs and sausage ineffectively, but doesn’t seem too bothered, not by the food smells or the questions, though Pat’s the one that answers most of them. 

“And it’s better when you’re there?” Thomas leans over the table, stares at Pat a little more openly than he might usually. “Or does he just do that to  _ you _ .” 

“Less screaming and less bleeding, all around,” Pat assures. “Promise.” 

“Well, that’s a blessing,” Thomas sighs. He tucks a strand of hair behind his ears. He’s collected himself, it seems, enough to face the day. Or to sleep through it, as the case may be. 

“All right. I’m going to fucking bed, ‘cause it’s too early to drink. You’re really okay, kid?” 

Brian nods earnestly. “I told you, it was pretty, um, par for the course. Sorry for all the mess.”

Thomas rolls his eyes. “You are a  _ weirdo _ . Pat, I woke up and this crazy little fucker was wrestling with a mop. So that he could  _ mop up his own blood  _ without waking me up.”

“I told you to use the sponges when we have company,” Pat jokes drily, and it makes Brian laugh but Thomas only grimace. “Sorry,” Pat gestures, in apology for his bad taste. “We’ve gotten used to it.” 

“You’re batshit,” Thomas says, and pushes himself up. “But hell, so’m I, so there’s that. Hit me up, kids, if you need me again. I’m at your service.” He gives a half-grin. “I’ll give you the friends-and-family rate. But there better be more beer.”

At Brian’s giggle, he salutes and shoves off back into the now brightly sunlit world.   

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They spend the day in easy company. Pat toys with the idea of going to the office, but Brian growls at this and pulls him in and bites his ear and whispers  _ I’ll let you stay with Fluffy if you stay with me today.  _ This is—a  _ glorious  _ offer—the distant buzz of work and rent and obligations is  _ so  _ much less urgent than the silly stubborn mouth that Pat kisses into and says  _ no bargaining necessary, kid, all you gotta do is ask. _

It’s still wretchedly  _ early _ , but Brian’s too bouncy-wakeful-antsy-bright to languish in bed, so they take a walk together in the sharp morning air instead, slow pace and fingers gripping loose to not jostle their bruises. Words dart between them easily, fluttering with echos of emotion—dark laughs and frantic accusations and smooth sultry flirting and anguished tears and every other stupid thing—all the things they’ve felt apart—and now need to feel again, together.   

Pat’s feet feel  _ strange _ , uneven, his stride somehow both light and sluggish, failing to interact with pavement in their normal way. It’s rather like a dream—he  _ hopes  _ it’s not a dream. Or at the very least, he hopes that he’ll never wake up.  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They’re back at Pat’s before the sun reaches its peak. The kid demands to see Patrick’s notes, and goes through every page as if the scratched-out scribbles are carefully-crafted stanzas. He traces the lines with his fingers and mouths the words, a level of attention that makes Pat blush and want to flee the room. He can’t quite remember what he’d written, about Fluffy and about Brian, but he’s sure that most of it was never meant to be read, and certainly never meant to be  _ annotated _ . 

It’s worth it, though, when Brian glances up at him, eyes wide and soft, and says things like  _ did you really I was beautiful?  _ and Pat feels his cheeks head up from pink straight toward vermilion, because he hadn’t really said  _ that,  _ had he? About Fluffy, as early as November? Great god in heaven. 

They’re mid-January when Pat gets a call. His fingers almost silence it, but he sees it’s from Simone and sighs, holds up a hand. “Hang on. I should get this. She’s checking on your continued existence.” 

"Let me, then,” Brian holds out his hand, face determined, like he’s taking medicine but he knows it’s for the best. Pat hands it to him.

“Hi Simone…yeah, it’s Bri…mmhmm. I’m fine. Yes! Fine…and no…yes…sorry for all the…”

He trails off, nods, and nods again, and shakes his head. It’s amusing, all this head movement that Simone can’t see. Pat can hear her—not all the words—but she is  _ loud _ when she’s worked up.

“Yeah,” Brian says, more quietly. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t…no, not that, exactly. But something like that. Yeah, I made him stay with me, today.”         

The kid bites his lip. Even that much, Pat thinks, is probably a lot for him to say, and he expects the phone to jab back in his direction any second. But Brian goes on.

“No you’re not…it’s okay. I need to hear it. Thank you. I promise. I  _ reall…  _ thank you—I promise. And no, I stopped because—okay. Okay. Yes. I don’t need you to go with me—okay. If you want.” 

He sneaks a sleeve up to his eyes. Simone’s come down a dozen decibels, gentle for her. But still, assuredly, direct. She’s pinning Brian down on a few things, Pat can tell. She’d said she’d do as much, in his haze of Saturday memories. 

“I can tomorrow, probably. Or Friday, if I’m still sick tomorrow. The café would be great.” 

She’d brought Pat more weed and cried her eyes out at him and accepted his useless, listless silence with her crabby graceless anger.  _ I’ll kill him _ , she’d nearly screamed, by far the loudest sound Pat heard all weekend. He didn’t remember her coming in, or leaving, but he remembered her, cross-legged screaming obscenities at his kitchen cabinets, and smacking his legs to jolt some reaction. He’d appreciated it. 

Brian’s eyes dart to Pat. “Yeah, he’s right here. Uh-huh—no, he’s okay. Yes, he did. Like…honestly too quickly. Almost immediately—I know, I know. He likes me too much. I can get away with anything. I don’t deserve it.” 

The hand cradling the phone is trembling slightly. Simone is loud again, for a second, and then less so. The kid seems a little lost. 

“I…yeah. I’m going to…try to get some editing done. No, I  _ can _ , I really—yes, exactly. It’s good to have something. Just text me with what you’ve got, okay? Thanks. Yeah. I might be like…well, honestly, I’m a fucking mess, but—” his eyes find Pat again. “I’m not alone, so.” He’s playing with the hem of his shirt, unpicking thread anxiously. 

“Um, okay. Wow...I—I don’t— _ thank you _ . Thank you, Simone. Tell Tara thank you, please.” He pauses. “Yes. Love you too. See you tomorrow. Friday at the latest.”       

Brian blinks back tears and passes the phone back to Pat. “So we’re good, then.” 

“Sounds like you got a telling-off.” 

“A little. I’m not supposed to disappear again.” He swings his feet on the bench, looking for a moment quite child-like, except the scars. “She said you were inconsolable.”

"Simone loves those one-dollar words,” Pat tucks the phone back in his pocket. “I would have just said ‘a fucking wreck.’”

“She also said that Tara finagled me more time off.” He blushes. “On the condition that I check in with her by text. I guess I—I scared her—” 

“Oh, I freaked everyone right out,” Pat laughs, a little hollowly. He hadn’t been careful, when he was looking for leads. He’d called up Tara apropos of nothing, begging to know if Brian had said he’d be missing work on Monday, and couldn’t think of a single way to justify it except the truth. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,”  Brian settles back a bit, and sighs, and picks up Pat's notes again.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


To lie beside Brian tonight, and stroke down his bare chest, and feel the thrilling of strange energy is a different and extraordinary joy. The kid is naked—clothes are, he says, driving him  _ mad  _ with itching—but he welcomes Pat’s smooth touches as long as they are firm and unfaltering and not too ticklish. 

Pat touches everywhere he can. Collarbones, hipbones, sharp and shaking, rigid edges that bely the soft curves between. He’s so fucking  _ fragile _ , Pat thinks without intending to. His hands slide over near-translucent skin and grip neck and waist and bucking hips. Brian whimpers, little sounds of pleasure, when Pat’s tongue finds some tender spot—he seems to like it best when Pat’s exploring mouth moves past a darkening bruise— _ threatening  _ hurt, but not skirting over the edge. So he pins down grasping fingertips and bony elbows, to lick along the lines of those sweet little wrists. Brian tenses and shudders and sighs.  

“I won’t let you get hurt again,” he whispers, swears softly into Brian’s skin. “Not if I can help it.” 

Brian says nothing, but he doesn’t need to—his promises are for Brian’s body, his earnest oaths are made to soft twitching skin and faint airy breaths and muscles flexing deep below. The kid is gripping into the mattress, fingers tangled, trying hard not to fight or writhe or grab or gasp or moan or move at all. Why he’s so eager to stay still, Pat can only guess. Perhaps he feels like his own unearthly incantations will only work if he can forswear from temptation. Pat noses his chin to the side to reach his neck. 

“I shouldn’t give you any marks,” Pat murmurs there, halfway through sucking one in to the crease under his chin. “What will people think. We’re both home from work.” 

“I always have weird marks,” Brian scoffs, and wriggles, and tilts his head back hungrily. “Those would be  _ easier  _ to explain than usual.” His voice is flirty-plaintive. “Maybe I got into a swordfight with someone  _ sexy _ .” 

Pat takes this as permission to suck dark purple circles into Brian’s body. It’s a strange indulgence, to do this—to let his reverence for Brian’s delicate skin be undone. He wants them to be _dark_ , he finds, and _brutal_ , and to write through them a testament to remind future iterations of himself that _this was real_ _and it was worth risking everything._ Brian trills and sighs most gratifyingly under his fingers. Everywhere, the trembling. 

“I need to let you sleep,” he mouths to Brian’s belly, chin ghosting southward, a gesture that is a question in the way his sentence is not. 

“You gotta be  _ kidding _ ,” the kid groans, and hitches his hips up at Pat’s dark, smirking mouth. “You  _ can’t  _ work me up like this and then let me sleep. Fluffy’ll go ape.”

This is an interesting hypothesis, but Pat can’t explore too much deeper, those questions right now, because Brian’s cock is straining for attention and the kid is plaintive, keening, for touch. Fluffy is to deal with later. Right now he’s hovering, breathing over Brian’s dick, listening to sweet wordless begging and smiling in amusement as the kid wars with his own self-imposed commandment to be still. 

Pat can do something about that, he thinks. The stillness. He breathes hot air onto the velvety skin and licks the slightest flick of wetness near the tip. Brian pants. 

“You’re  _ cruel _ ,” he gets out through his teeth. 

“Both so impatient,” Pat murmurs, teases, kisses delicately around the hot length. He knows the light irreverent licks will rip whimpers and cries from the body below. God, if he could drag this out forever, he would. “You’re being good, though,” he observes.

“I’m  _ trying _ ,” Brian throws his head back into the pillow, then maybe is pleased with the feeling, because he does it again for good measure. “I’m trying to be good. I want to grab your hair and  _ choke  _ you with my dick right now, but I’m a  _ gentleman _ .” 

Pat laughs darkly. “I bet that I can tease that out of you.”

He resumes kissing, light presses of tongue and lips, carefully exploring fingers skirt the edges of each pleasant sound and tickle out more desperate moaning. A glance finds Brian’s face screwed up, and Pat hums at his tense resistance, how hard he breathes and wet, how he loses control over his wrenching. He prods fingers gently, oh-so-gently, stroking up and down the tender points—he wants to map every single solitary centimeter of this body—to find, slow and careful, where Brian likes to be touched. There are a few interesting soft places, under his testicles—a promising dot near his tip—a mysteriously sweet sound elicited from the crease of his thigh— 

“Dear  _ God _ , Pat Gill,” he whines in anguish. “You’re wicked, wicked.”   

“You’d know,” Pat breathes, and licks again, up the side of Brian’s length, slow and gentle, in just the way that made him shudder and bite his lip. It’s even better, the second time, with him brushing the spot below that produces little jerking cries of need. Pat wants to devote himself to learning this instrument, if by the grace of God he’s given time to practice. “I think I’ll do that again a few times,” he says with sultry ponderousness. 

“I’m going to  _ die _ ,” Brian covers his eyes with his hands, as if he can’t bear to see that promise come to fruition. “I can’t— _ Pat _ —I can’t maintain decorum under these conditions.” 

Pat turns his laugh into a dare, and rubs a little ticklish spot with the tip of his wet tongue. He guesses it will only take a few flirting presses more, whiskered kisses and the faint suggesting of sucking, languid licks too hot and wet and  _ slow  _ for Brian to grind against. He takes a second more to do exactly the  _ wrong  _ thing, to draw away and smirk in answer to the moaned requests. 

“Fuck it,” Brian gives up, and grips Pat’s hair firm in both hands. “You  _ can’t  _ do this to me anymore.” 

Pat grins insolently, and doesn’t move except to suck the tip of Brian’s dick with ferocious slowness.

Brian  _ thrusts  _ in, firm but not vicious, and presses Pat’s head down. Obedient, he hollows his cheeks and sucks with steady pressure, rewarding the little act of aggression as earnestly as he can. Brian’s sighs and moans of relief are good, as are the little tugs that move Pat’s head back and forth. He snakes his fingers around the base of Brian’s cock and tries to lock into his memory that keening sound of joy and desperate, finally-realized pleasure. 

He succeeds in encouraging Brian to fuck his mouth, to cant his hips up sharp and needy-whining. Pat’s no expert, but he’s  _ had  _ a good blowjob before, and he knows from hard-won experience that he can handle it if Brian just takes what he wants. Whenever the hands in Pat’s hair relent or soften, Pat drags his mouth off Brian’s dick with deliberate, teasing slowness. It makes Brian grunt in frustration and dig in his heels and push faster and fight harder. It’s good, that. 

At last, the kid is pretty close, and Pat pulls up in earnest. “Dyou want to fuck me,” he offers, cautiously hopeful, finally undone enough by daring to voice the thought. 

“But…won’t I…won’t it hurt you?” Brian pants, the voice of someone trying to talk himself out of something he wants  _ most  _ desperately.   

“I kinda have to prep either way,” Pat says wryly. “Either you can or I will, honestly.” 

“That’s…,” Brian’s eyes are closed. “Fuck. I’ll go slow. God, I will. I’ll make it good.” 

“I trust you,” Pat smiles easily.

  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  


Brian curls, exhausted, into Pat’s chest. He’s fallen asleep already, crashing out into unconsciousness like he’s just plunged down an elevator shaft. The jerking of his body disturbs his soft, sweet, gentleness. Pat kisses his head fondly.

They’d been slow and careful. So  _ gentle  _ that Pat was—well, surprised. It’s not surprising that Brian would be gentle, just surprising that it would feel so… so  _ nice.  _ So tender. The probling lube-slicked digits and clever curling fingertips.  _ It doesn’t have to hurt at all _ , Brian had whispered, amid his litany of explanations and apologies and endearments, his onslaught of attentions to Pat’s dick and his own little hungry thoughtful movements.  _ I swear, it can feel so good _ . Pat tried to pay attention, between his panting moans of pleasure, to learn what Brian’s secrets are to working open his body, to making this feel—well,  _ good _ , as promised—not burning and not aching but just the stretch and press and only the slightest edges of pain around the main event of pleasurable openness.

This kid’s so exhausted. His body was limp and drained from pain and pleasure before even he collapsed into sleep. It’s cruel that the change has to run its course tonight, too. Still, Pat can’t help but feel joy that he gets to hold the twitching shoulders, murmur comforts, stroke Brian’s hair while it passes through him. He’s wanted so  _ badly  _ to do this. It’s doubtful it helps, with the pain or with anything—Brian’s not even aware—but it makes Pat feel better. 

The change feels slow tonight. It probably isn’t. It’s probably just that Pat’s never had his palm pressed to the shivering skin, never felt the pulls and shifts of muscle, never had his hand on Brian’s chest in that moment when the stuttering breathing grows heavy and strong. He’s never brushed sweat off Brian’s brow as he worries his lip and whimpers—he’s never felt the alien warmness there, as if his previously clammy-cool skin has been inflamed with some new fire. It’s intoxicating, all the new sensations, and a little fearsome. God, it’s good that Brian isn’t awake, for all of this. It’s fascinating, but it is also a horror.

“Hey, pup,” he murmurs into Brian’s neck, as the kid stills into his new self. Spooning, like they are, is probably not wise. He thinks being held close might make Fluffy claustrophobic. But that’s how Brian likes to be held, and the two share a body, so here they are. 

Said body rumbles and arches. He’s not bucking—more like stretching, pressing his shoulders into Pat with a yawn of waking pleasure. Pat lets his arms be loose, but doesn’t pull away. His fingertips are brushing the back of Brian’s arm. The kid doesn’t get hairier, but the hairs  _ do  _ stand on end, as if he’s fiercely cold. He’s not, though, Pat doesn’t thing. His skin is so  _ warm.  _

The body draws away. Pat is a little sad—his fingertips have been so hungry for touch, and Brian’s skin is like some sort of poisoned ambrosia, that no matter how he touches it he always wants more. Fluffy is maneuvering him, though, turning him on his back, pressing his shoulders flat. It’s familiar. The kid likes to be on top, when he’s like this, that’s for fuckin’ sure. It’s not about what Patrick gets to touch. 

Fluffy straddles Pat’s hips, presses both hands into his shoulders. It’s so unfair, that the beast gains unholy strength but keeps Brian’s insane flexibility. His knees are spread wide, sprawled sideways but still holding his weight in a way that would make Patrick scream if he tried it. He’s grateful, though, to not be panting from the crushing pressure. 

The kid is  _ staring _ . Pat is murmuring soft platitudes, without thinking. Mostly it’s just grateful things, praise, that he’s being so good, so gentle, that he looks cute, that he’s been so patient, things like that. The staring goes on, so topics stray to anything he can think of—poetry comes to mind, and how stuck he’s been in Dark Souls, and what he had for breakfast. Fluffy just likes talking, you see. It doesn’t always freeze him in his tracks like this—but sometimes it does. Sometimes the beast sort of half-closes his eyes and listens and listens, and that’s when it’s usually best to snake a hand into his hair. 

Brian bats away the hand today, though. He’s touching, instead, Pat’s head and hair and body. The sharp claws are a reckless danger, but a familiar one. They’re not even touching him, mostly. Mostly it’s just fingertips, feeling him, like Fluffy’s making sure he’s all there, and he’s real, and he’s the same as he’s been before. “I’m good, kid, I’m here. Same as usual.” The claws trace across his collarbone—Pat feels like they are purposefully lingering there, but it’s so easy to read motivation into these touches that may or may not be there. Is Fluffy pondering how delicate Pat’s bones are, underneath his thrumming fingers? Is he remembering or regretting or delighting in the marks already there? Or maybe he’s just finding a fresh spot, where the skin is tender, to bite his ownership into Pat’s skin again. 

The last one seems likely, because the head suddenly dips—it’s not a bite, though. He’s whimpering and  _ nuzzling  _ into Pat’s chest, hair and face rubbing against him as he brushes his cheek into that spot. It’s...adorable, actually, quite catlike in its way, and he feels a little like he does when Charlie deems him worthy of sitting on. The body shifts off Pat’s hips, one leg moving over so that he’s now on one side only. His head keeps resting on Pat’s chest, though, one clawed hand gripping his wrist possessively while the other trails, loosely, down his side. His knees curl a bit, wrapping Pat’s leg but not gripping  _ too  _ tight, just entangling their bodies in a sort of warm embrace of tight-knit intimacy. 

Pat groans. “Are you telling me if we had just  _ fucked before  _ it would have been fine, all this time?” There’s no way to know, really, but Fluffy seems sated today. It’s funny, how his body is so much stiller than Brian, who wiggles and laughs and jokes and squirms with excitement and arousal. Fluffy is so  _ deliberate _ —he can move sharp-sudden, but usually it’s with fierce and fast intention. When he’s slow it’s languid and almost sleepy-headed. 

He rubs his head and cheek into Pat’s shoulder twice more, and flicks his claws into the tender skin of Pat’s inner arm, and doesn’t let go of the wrist he’s caught, and wraps his legs more carefully to get comfortable, and falls the fuck to sleep. 

“I love you,” Pat murmurs into the fuzzy head, nonplussed. “Thanks for takin’ it easy.” 

There’s not much to do, then, but fall asleep himself. It takes him a while. He just wants to listen to the strange loud echo of Brian’s heartbeat, and the pulsing fluttering differentness of his breath, and wonder what the beast dreams of.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


To Pat’s surprise, Brian wants to kiss him again, on Thursday, even though his body is exhausted and his fingers shiver with little jolts and jabs.  And on Friday, too, he pulls in for tender, teary kisses as soon as the day breaks bright into the room and Pat risks cracking an eyelash at the dawn.

Pat can’t work up the fucking nerve to ask the kid if he’s for real, if this is real, if this is just a part of his renewed commitment to continued existence, an elaborate test to see if he is deserving of affection. Or if the kid really feels— 

— he feels so  _ good _ , under Pat’s fingertips, that he bats the thought away. Fuck it. Fuck  _ all of it.  _ He can think about that next month or after Brian’s better or after he does the next horrible thing that makes Brian leave. For now, he can’t fucking care why this is happening, why Brian’s ridiculous little heart is full to bursting and Pat is the lucky recipient of such enthusiastic attentions. 

Maybe if you want something bad enough the universe really does give it to you. Maybe Brian’s just seen his stupid face so much that he wants to shut it up, periodically, with his lips. Maybe Fluffy finally is getting to him. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**you work it out with wolfie?**

**Yeah  
** **Thanks again Thomas**

**and the twinks okay too?**

**He is yeah**

**good.  
** **he seemed like a sweetheart  
** **glad hes into your kink  
** **i still cant get over that youre not a top**

**Who says I’m not**

**oh you rascally dog  
** **you really do get the best of both worlds dont you**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh haiiiii sorryyyy im not dead <3 i'm just bad at ending stories, my dudes. 
> 
> i wrote the last chapter (sort of the Happily Ever After epilogue) as the original ending and then   
> my stupid ass added two or three or seven plot points when editing and posting the whole beastly creation  
> and then i'm like well i better address those things in the penultimate chapter OH NO IM BAD AT WRITING AHH  
> HOW DID ALL THESE CHARACTERS AND PLOTS AND MOTIFS HAPPEN
> 
> finally i just gave up so like. here's my best try, lovies. see you in the epilogue!


	6. freedom to live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark,  
> singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running—that's the way to live.
> 
>  
> 
> **— Jack Kerouac**

It’s weird, to start dating halfway through a relationship. More than halfway, really, on Pat’s side. He already knows Brian’s intimate secrets, worst fears. They’ve already been sleeping next to each other for almost a year. Pat already knows the delicate curves of Brian’s body, and how fragile they can be.

Brian seems eager to make up lost time, though, crawling all over Pat every night, asking questions and touching him with gentle, trembling hands. He asks Pat what his childhood was like. Whether he’s had boyfriends before, or only girlfriends. What movies make him cry.

Pat tries to be open—it’s not easy, for him—but he owes it to the kid, who he’s wasted so much time pressing to his chest and pining for quietly. He tells Brian about his dad. About his one and only boyfriend, and lots of girls. About how he doesn’t cry in movies, not really, but sometimes when he calls home or old friends he’ll just suddenly break down on the phone, for like, no reason.

Brian takes any revelation in stride, which makes sense, and kisses Pat senseless and lets their limbs entwine easily and sucks his dick with incredible gusto. He seems so very relieved, every day, of tension, of fear, of anxious desire that Pat hadn’t even known he harbored. He loves giving Pat hickies and calling him  _ old man _ , and he loves being held like a precious thing, and he loves growling dark promises into Pat’s ear that he invariably, invariably keeps. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Charles still resents being put out for the night, but he likes Brian’s near-constant presence to spoil him with treats, and he  _ really  _ likes the new room arrangement, with Pat’s bed close to the window and the furniture moved back in. Fluffy’s not so wild anymore, most of the time. He’s not  _ tame _ , by any means, but he doesn’t scratch Pat until he cries or fuck him with the brutal desperation of someone who thinks the whole world is ending tomorrow. So score one for Patrick that he can now keep a glass of water on his nightstand, and score one for Charlie that the rest of the month he can hop up on the bed and stare out the window. Lord knows what he’s looking at, all the way up here, but he likes it. 

  
  
  
  
  


“He left late, Pat, so he should be almost there I think. Sorry. We were watching something.” 

“No trouble, Laura, just checking in.” 

“I know he’s usually there by dinner. We didn’t mean to make him late.” 

“It’s really fine, Laura, it doesn’t matter that much. Just wanted to know whether or not to expect him.” 

“Oh he’s definitely coming. Dyou think it’s gonna be bad, this time?” 

“No reason to think so. Why?” 

“Well I wanted to take him out to lunch tomorrow but I know sometimes it’s just like. Too much.” 

“Maybe pick somewhere quiet, if you can. I think noise is really getting to him this tim—oh, he just got in, by the way. ” 

“Great. And quiet, sure. Tea house it is. D’you wanna come?” 

“Sure, but I’ll probably be sleeping in until noon, so if you want to go earlier count me out.”

“Makes sense. Let’s do two, maybe? If Brian’s free.” 

“Lemme ask him— _Brian! Dyou wanna go get tea with your sister tomorrow?_ _At two?_ — he wants to know if it’s at the Korean place he likes.” 

“Oh! It could be. With the boba? They don’t have air conditioning, but I love it anyway.” 

“Let me— _ She’s reminding you that your boyfriend sweats like a whore in church  _ — huh, funny, he’s saying maybe the air-conditioned place would be way better and he likes it more anyway. ( _ I AM NOT SAYING THAT PATRICK SUCK IT UP _ )”

“Haha, all right, so I’ll meet you there at two then. Just wear  _ shorts _ , Patrick, you’ll be fine.” 

“Always siding with him. See you, Laura.” 

“Bye Pat. Bye Bri.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**simone (4:20:04): calling all sneaky sex kittens**

**simone (4:20:08): tara does in fact think you are fucking**

**simone (4:20:12): do with that what you will.**

**pat (4:21:03): shit.**

**pat (4:21:05): how’d she find out?**

**simone (4:21:10): iono but she put you bitches in a room with one bed for e3**

**simone (4:21:13): what a fucking boss**

**bdg (4:21:15): are you mad pat?**

**pat (4:21:20): no not mad**

**pat (4:21:22): not at all**

**pat (4:21:25): just wondered what gave it away**

**bdg (4:21:57): i think she might have seen us in the break room**

**bdg (4:22:00): or like**

**bdg (4:22:03): seen me coming out of the break room**

**bdg (4:22:07): i try to fix my hair pat gill but when youre that handsy theres not much i can do**

**simone (4:22:12): GUYS THIS IS A GROUP MESSAGE**

**simone (4:22:15): PLEASE DONT TALK ABOUT YOUR WORK FUCKING**

**simone (4:22:18): i need at least plausible deniability**

**bdg (4:22:20): lol srry**

**pat (4:22:24): your discretion is always appreciated, simone**

**bdg (4:22:29): you sure you’re not mad?**

**pat (4:22:32): no im just annoyed i owe allegra fifteen bucks**

**pat (4:22:36): fuck i was sure tara would be last**

**bdg (4:22:40): ol**

**bdg (4:22:41): *lol**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They eventually  _ do  _ take that trip, even though it’s not as urgent as it used to be. Brian doesn’t think there’s gonna be any point—he’d considered and dismissed clinical lycanthropy in, like, month four, okay—but the conference sounds low-key, and it’s in Vermont, and Pat offers to drive. He likes driving, and he wants to show the northeast off to Brian a bit. 

Brian is fun to watch. He likes witch-windows, because they give him that old-timey Stephen King vibe, but is disappointingly tepid about sugarhouses. He prefers his Aunt Jemima. Absolutely incorrigible. 

It turns out that Brian is right, mostly. It’s a pretty podunk affair, maybe a hundred people maximum, and they haven’t got any literature that feels relevant. It’s all case studies and Cotard delusions, and although Brian takes some notes in a talk on proprioception that says might be helpful, Pat thinks he doesn’t really believe it.

“Sorry for dragging you here,” Pat sighs, as they sneak out the back. “This is useless.”

“It’s okay,” Brian says, shoving his notes back in his bag. “It’s not. It’s worth it even just for the pre-publication copy of that literature review—might find a lead in there—and at least I could give that one girl your notes about paresthesias— ”

“We can just go, if you want. We can probably find something else to do in town, with the afternoon. It makes me tired, to hear them go over and over shit you don’t have.”

“No, let’s stay.” Brian says, taking Pat’s hand. “I wanna talk to some more people.” 

Talking to people is interesting. Mostly, they’re doctors, sometimes family members. It’s a weird niche psychological disorder, maybe a dozen cases in the whole world, so everybody here is  _ attached  _ in some way, dealing with a patient or a parent or a spouse who is obsessed by the delusion they’re turning into a monster. It’s gotta be tough. 

They’re curious about Brian and Pat, because they’re new faces, and this world is so small that everyone knows everyone else. When Brian introduces himself as “in partial remission,” Pat drops his styrofoam cup in shock and spills shitty lukewarm coffee all over himself, which is at least enough of a distraction that his brain has a moment to erase the lies he prepped. 

“Are you a friend?” the bright-eyed doctor looks at Pat, after she solicitously helps him clean up his mess. “Or partner?”

“Yeah, uh, partner.  _ So  _ sorry about your shoes.”

She puts a hand on his arm. “No problem. It’s honestly just really good to see a patient doing well. With a support system. Most of us only get one in our whole careers. We come and chit-chat about the medicine in the day, but we’re really here to spy on the meet-up. We’re so grateful you’re willing to let us sit in.”

Brian rocks on the balls of his feet, that way he gets when he was  _ going  _ to tell Pat about something, but conveniently  _ forgot _ . 

“Thanks for everything you do,” Brian smiles. “I’ll see you tonight, then?”

“For sure.” She wanders off to the next talk, and Pat turns, raises an eyebrow.

“Tonight?”

“Sorry,” Brian blushes. “I didn’t hear about it until yesterday when I was talking to the beard guy about his paper. I was gonna surprise you. I guess um. Mostly the sufferers don’t come to the conference part? ‘Cause, yknow. It’s not like, for  _ us _ . But they come along with their families and meet up after.”

“Well fuck me,” Pat barks out a laugh. “Of course you people meet at night.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The sufferers—although they don’t call themselves sufferers, they call themselves  _ the tribe _ —meet at a bar in the bad part of town. It’s a small town, to have a bad part, but it does, and they’ve found it. It’s a dive bar with horrible karaoke and the bartender doesn’t know what goes in a gimlet and the regulars are amused that, for once, something truly strange is going on. 

“ _ ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT,”  _ a wizened old lady shouts, and she’s wearing a black corset and a barrage of silvery bracelets, and she has a tattoo of a moonlit night that snakes up her arm. “Let the Moontribe commence! Announcements first, who’s got ‘em.” 

“Arty’s got something,” Pat hears from behind him. “G’won, Arty.” 

A young man, quite tidily dressed and nervous, presumably Arty, stands up. “Um. Do I  _ have  _ to go first?” Upon the shouts of  _ yes  _ he flinches and straightens his tie. “Uh, okay, okay. I just was gonna report that. Um. After continued experiments on the effects of Aconitum, I’ve got some cautiously positive results. Although I know I said last month it makes muscle tension worse, it seems to favorably reduce the muscle tremors in concentrations from 0.3–3 µM. But like,  _ please  _ don’t experiment with it yourself. It’s very poisonous. I’m looking for safe sources of aconitine that aren’t, like, just Chinese herbal shops, because their dosing is  _ really  _ inconsistent, and it’s really hard to synthesize in laboratory…” 

Arty trails off, at the blank looks around him, and coughs. “So what I’m saying is, uh. Monkshood is promising. Might help with the trembles. I’m working on it.” 

“Keep it up, Arty,” the wizened old lady. “You’re the brains of this operation. Who’s next?”

A man stands and has a few things to say about lucid dreaming techniques and mental clarity. Next a girl—she’s a slip of a thing, maybe only 20—who just stands and sadly announces that Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan was not likely of the tribe at all, but was called the Wolf of Badenoch posthumously because of his violent tendencies. But she still thinks Anglophone heraldries are promising sources of historical insight, and she’ll keep looking. 

Pat watches the announcements with interest. They’re an eclectic mix, from people he wouldn’t find amiss busking in a subway to polished yuppies with well-coiffed hair and tightly coiled expressions. It’s not many, maybe a half-dozen announcements in all, and it’s hard to tell who in the bar is here for the meetup and who are just hangers-on. Like Pat himself. 

“All righty then. If that’s it, we’ll adjourn to just chatting. But first. Any new blood want to announce itself? Y’don’t have to.” She eyes the crowd, but it’s obvious who, precisely, she’s eyeing. “But you can if you want.” 

Pat looks at Brian, who colors and glances back at him. Brian’s look says  _ should I?  _ and Pat’s look back says  _ might as well _ . It’s cute, the way he raises his hand.

“We’re glad to have you,” the wizened lady acknowledges him with a smile. “What’re you then? Friend? Admirer? Mythologist? Psychiatrist?” 

Brian coughs. “I’m Brian. I just have this thing once a month, ma’am. I dunno what it is, but it’s a  _ real  _ hassle.” 

“Welcome to the tribe,” she grins. “You’re in the right place. Let’s get to the fun part, then.” 

And it  _ is  _ fun, for Brian, wandering around and meeting people, chatting about nail care and giving out book recommendations. To be honest, Pat can’t tell if the people they’re meeting are delusional or not, if they  _ actually  _ turn into dangerous creatures every month, or if they just  _ think  _ they do. He supposes it would be hard to tell, from the outside. 

It’s disappointing, to Pat, that every story seems unique, but Brian takes it in stride. The young girl with the history books says she’s perfectly capable of finishing her homework, and in fact tends to write more effective rhetoric when she’s changed; plus, she loves what it does to her hair. Arty groans despairingly, and says he spends the week dry-heaving. He evades the questions about his body—he blacks out cold, he says, and has never let someone close. One lady has the same haunted, sad look Brian used to have, and scars all up her arms, and won’t talk much. An older guy emphasizes the importance of dream journaling, and how if you master the techniques you can use your  _ gift  _ to go on vision quests. 

They exchange email addresses and twitter handles with a sort of clandestine urgency, seeking out some strand of shared experience without divulging too much of their private hells. 

“We’ve found more questions than answers,” Pat sighs, as Brian carefully notes symptoms next to names, and question marks where people won’t talk about it. “These people keep their shit on lock-down.” 

“Don’t you get why, though?” Brian whispers. “That old guy got  _ electroshock. _ ”

“That was the seventies,” Pat grimaces. “And it sucks, but I think we’d do better now.”

“I think they’re afraid of being experiments,” the kid shrugs, sensibly. “Or freak shows.” 

“That guy is  _ literally  _ in a circus,” Pat points. “But okay, I get it.” He understands why Brian is willing to chat about the nails and the blackouts, but he doesn’t talk about the fearsome strength and lusty urges. Whatever he does or doesn’t do to Pat isn’t a problem, anymore, and it isn’t fit for conversation anyway. 

Though one lady whose husband is in  _ the tribe  _ gives Pat a wink that makes him  _ very  _ uncomfortable. 

As the night grows long in the tooth the meeting begins to bleed out into the starry night. 

“G’bye, newblood,” the wizened old lady calls, and Brian is polite enough to go up and shake her hand before they leave. 

“Thank you very much,” he says earnestly. “I never thought—I figured it was only me—” 

“Yeah, we all think that at first,” she says, patting his shoulder, her knobbly hand studded with gaudy rings. She’s shorter than he, but she’s up on a step and has a rather benevolent grandmotherly air, staring down at him. “We think it’s never happened to anyone before. But good lord, just look at the mythology. There’s nothing new under the sun. Or the moon, as the case may be. All ya gotta do is pick up a book.” 

“I picked up a  _ lot  _ of books,” Brian dips his head. “I really did. But nothing sounded quite right.” 

“Well, sounds like you’d better write one for us, then,” she ruffles his hair. “Thanks for comin’ out. Hope we’ll see you again after the Buck Moon.” 

Her eyes flit to Pat, hovering awkwardly just behind. “You’re welcome too, son. No need to hang back. We don’t bite.” 

“That,” Pat says delicately, “isn’t  _ strictly  _ true. But I’ll be back anyway.” 

She grins, a ferocious, hard-won, saturnalian grin, and dips her chin. “Aye. Then merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 <3 <3  
> I TRIED MY BEST, MY DEARIES. endings are hard. 
> 
>  

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [i'll walk with you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21735796) by [segmentcalled](https://archiveofourown.org/users/segmentcalled/pseuds/segmentcalled)




End file.
